Mary Crowley's Project Kaisei Launches Garbage Pickup

GreenTracker| Writing last summer about efforts to document and propose cleanups for the dumps of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean, we apparently skimmed over Mary Crowley’s name, when writing about her Project Kaisei.

When a woman is at the helm, we sound the bugles and with no apologies.

Ms. Crowley is organizing fishermen — many with beards and baseball caps pulled down low, according to the Christian Science Monitor — to join her in another trek to sea, to what she calls the North Pacific Trash Gyre, aka the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is a subset of the larger NPTG area.

We support all initiatives to clean up the Pacific. There’s no comparison between the publicity accorded the Plastiki Expedition — which actually left two months ago, sailing from Calif to Sydney, through the Garbage Patch.

With all the hype around the Pastiki Expedition last summer, Project Kaisei was returning from an expedition — albeit it not in a boat made from recycled plastic bottles as the Plastiki Expedition is sailing.

John Varel, founder and CEO of FusionStorm, which provides back-end technology for businesses, has kicked in $100,000 to help Project Kaisei. Mr. Varel has started the FusionStorm Foundation to address ocean pollution.

Project Kaisei has a Facebook page, but as marketers, we think the group needs a higher profile. We will be trying to help promote Mary Crowley’s project every way we can.

More reading about both Plastiki and Project Kaisei:

Mexico City Joins Ban on Garbage Bags

Researchers a Welcome Crowd in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch