Tracking Trash

Burns, Loree Griffin. (2007). Tracking trash: Flotsam, jetsam, and the science of ocean motion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN-13:978-0-618-58131-3

As the year approaches 2010, the news headlines read: “ Humans Continue to Use and Abuse the Earth and her Resources.” Mother Earth screams in deafening volume, and we simply turn up the TV or lace up our Nikes for a whirlwind all-day shopping trip. Unbeknownst to us, those very Nike sneakers that make us run so fast are also helping to provide researchers with scientific data regarding ocean currents and further, informing the public about the traumatic consequences of plastics in the Pacific.

In an appropriately-timed book entitled Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion, Loree Griffin Burns shares an educational adventure at sea. Armed with an array of beachcombers, scientists, volunteers, and researchers, oceanographer Curt Ebbesmeyer picks up trash for a living. Well, not exactly. Coupled with Jim Ingraham, Jr. from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and his cutting edge computer program OSCURS, Ebbesmeyer takes readers on a scavenger hunt, complete with clues and hidden trashy treasures, looking for soggy cargo that has fallen from ships and survived at sea. Since 1991, objects like hockey gloves and plastic bathtub toys, have been washing up on beaches around the world. In an effort to understand this traveling trash and motion of the ocean, Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham predict the paths of the floating debris and then collect data on ocean waves, tides, and currents.

Written in a straight-forward, no-nonsense style, Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion is an informative story about the power and variability of ocean currents. Yet, it has a compassionate streak, also doubling as a spokesperson for the environment. Did you know that there is a garbage dump as big as the state of Alaska floating in the Pacific Ocean? Not only that, but plastic accounts for a tremendous amount of trash in the swirling ocean garbage can: “plastic is one of the most indestructible materials on the planet. This is one of the reasons we find it so useful. Plastic is found in everything, from the toys we play with to the plates we eat from, the cars we drive, and even the clothes we wear.” It is only by understanding the consequences of our actions and teaching books like Tracking Trash in our classrooms that we begin to develop a love for our mother… Mother Earth.