Lots of Lost Legos May Turn Up on Your Beach
A scientist gets the drift on shore trash
Rubber duckies. Ebbesmeyer's life changed in 1991 after his mother read about hundreds of Nike shoes mysteriously stranded on Pacific Northwest beaches. She asked if he could explain it. In no time, he was hooked. Investigating, he found the source: Eighty thousand Nikes were among the contents of 21 containers spilled from a storm-rocked ship on its way from Korea to the United States in May 1990. A year later, he and Ingraham published a scientific paper on the drift and distribution of 29,000 yellow duckies, blue turtles, red beavers, and other bath toys, some of which came ashore in Alaska 10 months after being swept from a ship bound for Tacoma, Wash., from Hong Kong. Today, faded to a uniform pale yellow and bearing tooth marks from sea otters or other creatures, the toys are still stranded, floating around the rim of the North Pacific, many having cycled in and out of the Arctic ice pack several times. Some may make it to the Atlantic.
For beachcombers who are environmentally inclined, Ebbesmeyer's newsletter is long overdue. "We are seeing just so much trash," said Steven McLeod, a Cannon Beach, Ore., artist who spends part of most days scanning the strand line. "What's nice about the newsletter is knowing there are other people out there doing the same thing I do," he says. "I won't say they are wacky, but they are scratching their heads like me, wondering what this is that washed up." Until somebody invents a stormproof ship, the waves are sure to keep depositing lost cargos, each with a tale to tell.
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