Last weekend, Jason Rolfe, the NOAA Marine Debris Program Southeast and Caribbean Regional Coordinator, took part in a panel discussion and provided insight on the award-winning documentary, Into the Gyre about plastic pollution in the North Atlantic Ocean following the public screening at the Jekyll Island Convention Center on Jekyll Island, Georgia.

Into the Gyre, filmed in 2010, follows a team of NOAA-funded scientists investigating the location, extent and concentration of marine debris floating on the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean. The team of sailors and researchers sailed east from Bermuda out into Sargasso Sea aboard the research vessel operated by the Sea Education Association (SEA). The film follows four of the scientists as they collect, count, and archive the plastic they encounter on the 34 day expedition where they collected more than 48,000 pieces of plastic debris in 128 surface plankton net tows. The results from the sampling show that plastic debris has accumulated in the central North Atlantic basin in concentrations equal to or greater than the western basin, which SEA has sampled annually for more than 24 years.

For more information, contact Jason.Rolfe@noaa.gov.

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