Mystery of Plastic Tube Debris is Solved, But Wait ... There's Also Translucent Beads!

November 1, 2001 2:15 PM

Mystery of Plastic Tube Debris is Solved, But Wait ... There's Also Translucent Beads!
Marine debris experts were stumped as to the origin of bluish-gray plastic tubes ranging between 5-10 inches and of uneven width that kept washing up on shores. The website Beachcomber's Alert was no help at all. After the Honolulu Advertiser reported on the phenomenon, the pipes washed up on this Japanese website (English), along with a few other mystery objects. The leads came flooding in; mystery solved!
posted by rschram (9 comments total)

So, how can we make a biodegradable plastic that doesn't degrade during use in the ocean, but does if it gets away? Oh, the pain of living in a changing world!
posted by dwivian at 2:40 PM on November 1, 2001

rschram, I love this. How on earth did you track down the solution to the mystery? Were you somehow personally involved, or did you start with a web-search and follow it to its solution on curiosity only? Either way, thank you.
posted by realjanetkagan at 2:56 PM on November 1, 2001

How on earth did you track down the solution to the mystery? Were you somehow personally involved... Well, I was the one dumping the plastic tubes in the ocean, but the sleuthing was all done by the Advertiser's readers and the Office of Beach Clean-Up. ;)

Today's article in the Advertiser linked to the Japanese government site (scroll to bottom). I saw the initial article yesterday on my favorite source for MeFi links Pacific Islands Report.
posted by rschram at 3:08 PM on November 1, 2001

In the early 90's I was stationed (marooned is more like it) on the Aleutian Island of Shemya, in the North Pacific...we used to have kids toys (by the tens of thousands), bottles of Japanese cleaning and bathroom products and most amazingly tennis shoes wash up all the time. I think they were Adidas (and there were hundreds of them but all too waterlogged to be of any use).
posted by m@ at 3:44 PM on November 1, 2001

I remember reading about the enormous numbers of tennis shoes. There was some theory about entire shipping containers lost off of boats.

I can't believe I found a fan page for shipping containers.
posted by dhartung at 4:00 PM on November 1, 2001

Yeah, I recall an article I linked to back in August, 1997 about this phenomenon. Yellow duckies, blue turtles, red beavers, green frogs & Nike shoes.
posted by camworld at 4:09 PM on November 1, 2001

Those lost shipping containers are dangerous. There are hundereds if not thousands of them out there, most floating just below the surface of the water. One of my father's oldest friends was a hardcore yacht skipper who used to race between Hawaii and San Francisco all the time and he has stories of yachts breaking their keels hitting those things. Kinda spooky if you think about it.
posted by Hackworth at 6:17 PM on November 1, 2001

Four years ago I hiked the west coast trail, off the west coast of Vancouver Island. All along the coast we found strange items that had washed ashore, including floats from Japanese fishing crews, netting, and a whole lot of hockey equipment.

Apparently a ship lost a container full of equipment during a storm back in the 80s, and it's still washing ashore.
posted by kaefer at 9:26 PM on November 1, 2001

i'm oh so disappointed that i can't look at the photo's of CAST's old containers. everyone loves CAST's old containers.

so, so, strange.
posted by clockwork at 11:17 PM on November 1, 2001