The not-so-innocent aluminum can and the ocean—World Cruising news

by David Schmidt, Sail-World Cruising Editor on 18 Sep 2015 When I was a small boy first learning the ropes of sailing, cruising, and the sailing lifestyle, I remember being particularly impressed when I saw adults absentmindedly tearing apart an aluminum can and tossing it into the drink, where-I was told-it would quickly dissolve in a bath of brine. Mind you, I wasn’t impressed with the action of jettisoning the can into the drink (I was already well familiar with the word “litterbug”), but rather the cool, devil-may-care attitude with which the cans were abandoned.

To a young, impressionable kid growing up in a world of fairly strict rules and an ethos of personal and environmental responsibility, this glimpse of “the adult world” presented a quandary, namely looking cool in front of the other blokes, or being the responsible sailor and human being that my poor parents were working really hard to raise.

Fortunately, I was soon educated about the fact that aluminum cans don’t just magically break down in a matter of days, but rather can take “some time” to degrade. And while the time required was never really quantified, I was aware that it was a lot longer than my then-12-year-old attention span could fathom.

Soon, I was the brash young kid admonishing adults not to throw their empty beer and soda/pop cans into the drink. While it’s possible that this lead to its share of heated arguments (and possibly to me finding new boats to go racing on…an easy challenge when you’re a dedicated junior sailor with low expectations of treatment or handicap rating), it felt right to be doing my bit to try and help protect the ocean, even if this was a mere flicker of effort compared to environmental atrocities such as the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Flash forward more than a quarter of a century, however, and I found myself reading Ian ‘Thommo’ Thomson’s latest blog entry on his excellent www.oceancrusaders.org website called “Aluminum Cans and the Ocean” (also available inside this issue), and I realized that the obnoxious 12-year old who was barking at adults not to throw their beer cans into the drink back in the late-1980s was spot-on correct.

According to Thomson, there’s a lot more in an aluminum can than just aluminum, which-on its own-is relatively benign. For example, a plastic liner is used to ensure that the can’s contents do not eat away at the aluminum (a process called “metal turbidity” in the beer industry), toxic inks are often used to make logos pop on grocery-store aisles, and a thin plastic film is applied on the can’s outside to protect the toxic inks from accidentally getting scratched off.

So, the innocuous aluminum in the can is really the peanut butter and jelly that’s sandwiched between films of plastic and toxic ink. Lovely, and certainly nothing that we want to end up in the ocean where it can wreck havoc with the environment that we sailors love best.

Fortunately, there’s good news. Aluminum cans are one of the easier bits of post-consumer waste to recycle, as the plastics and inks can be burned off in a furnace (the fumes filtered to protect the environment) and the metal returned to its raw state, to be used to build something new. The key, of course, is ensuring that the cans end up at a recycling facility, and not atop a section of coral reef.

The world is lucky to have people like Thomson and his wife, Annika Fredriksson, as both of these sailors are committed to a life afloat, fighting plastic pollution, and making the oceans cleaner for future generations. But that’s to say nothing of their sailing careers, as both Thomson and Fredriksson have earned their share of miles, from coastal cruising to passagemaking to offshore racing. In fact, Thomson is the former record holder for the fastest solo circumnavigation of Australia aboard a monohull (2010), and he has also worked as a yacht captain, a sailing instructor, a diving instructor, and a commercial pilot.

His passion for the ocean and it’s creatures comes from being on the water and in the water most of his working life. Recovering dead turtles that have died from plastic bag ingestion brings him to tears, yet he uses these images and memories to drive this campaign to ensure that no more end up with the same fate.

Thompson and Fredriksson recently moved to Darwin on Australia's northern coast, both with commercial marine tickets, and saved funds to embark on their latest crusade.

The duo are currently in Almeria, Spain, where they are preparing to debark Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, before pressing on to the Caribbean and the across the mighty blue swath known as the Pacific Ocean.

Be sure to check out Thomson’s article, “Aluminum Cans and the Ocean”, inside this issue, and stay tuned to the website for more of his writing and his mission to help protect the world’s oceans.

Also inside this issue, get the latest downloads from Guo Chuan’s Artic Ocean World Record Challenge, as well as the latest news on the capsized MOD 70 Race for Water and the new ARC Channel Islands 2016 Rally. Enjoy!

May the four winds blow you safely home,