Educational Sailboat in RI for Bay Clean-Up
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The Rozalia Project, launched this summer from Albany, NY, is in Rhode Island's waters this week as part of a seasonal journey along the Eastern Seaboard to both clean up debris and call attention to issues with local communities while doing so.
Rachel Brown and husband James Lyne, both veteran racers, started the venture after seeing the vast amount of trash piling up all over the world. Two events prompted them to take action: a massive algae bloom at the sailing venue during the Olympics in Bejing and a trash-covered beach on a remote island in Maine. "We're just sick of the trash in the ocean. It's everywhere," Brown said. Despite this universal waste, the problem can be solved, she said. "We realized it's a big, old problem and we have the expertise and experience to take care of it."
Picking up "picnic items"
Brown and Lyne are using their 60-foot sailboat as home for an aquatic cleanup of waterways and ports throughout the Northeast. At stops in Jamestown (pictured above), Providence, and Newport four crew members have been using nets and remote operating vehicles (ROVs) to collect debris from surface waters and off the sea floor. Already, the crew has collected quite a few "picnic items" such as plastic bottles, soda cans, food wrappers and balloons. An anchor found by Brown and Lyne will be cleaned and given to the Herreshoff Museum in Bristol.
Catch Rozalia in Newport on Wednesday at its "Trash Bash" from 5-7pm at Sail Newport. Follow the journey on their blog, here.
Tim Faulkner is a staff member of ecoRI News, a Providence-based nonprofit journalistic initiative devoted to educating readers about the causes, consequences and solutions to local environmental issues and problems. Read more at http://www.ecori.org/.
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