We have all seen, or maybe even at home, a rubber duck: one of the most “pop” and widespread toys of all time, thanks to its forms and the yellow allygro that makes it immediately visible in the middle of the chaos of our days. However, the harmless duck has become a Symbol of the pollution of our seas When, in 1992, a cargo ship started from Hong Kong lost a load of 28 800 plastic toys. The unusual load, called Friendly Floatees Like floating toys for the children’s bath, it was missing in the north of the Pacific and began to appear on the coasts of Hawaii and in Alaskabut in the following years the sightings multiplied to the Pacific beaches at any latitude. The ducks also lapped theArctic To then head to the Altlantic Ocean, up to the coasts of Europe: a journey that best represents the risks of plastic waste, persistent and always traveling to our seas, but also lacomplexity and variability of the ocean currents who have scattered them throughout the world.
Le Friendly Floatees: the long journey of the load dispersed at sea
In 1992, the PortaContainer Ever Laurel ship, owned by the Evergreen Marine company (the same as the famous Ever Given, That He blocked the Suez canal in 2021) He was traveling from Hongkong to the USA. During a storm, the ship lost several containers including some containing floats toys, floating rubber animals: it was in total 28800 plastic toysdivided into 4 groups of 7 200 between Gialle ducksred beavers, blue turtles and green frogs.
The containers opened at sea and the cardboard packs who contained the toys were immediately destroyed: the fact that the toys were floating prevented the load A tide of puppets began a long journeydragged by ocean currents.
In the same year, the first toys were found by the seekers (the so -called beachcombers) on the coasts of Hawaii, the closest inhabited lands, and subsequently in Alaska. A part of the load was dragged back to Asia by northeast circulation, driven by the same currents that allowed the birth of the famous “Great Pacific Garbage Patch“, An area with a high concentration of plastic waste.
A large number of toys virmed to the south, crossing the equator and heading towards the coasts of Oceania and South America, while part of those trapped by the Northern currents was pushed through the Bering Strait towards the Arctic. In the 2000s, ducks were found on the Atlantic coasts of the USA and Great Britain15 years later The original accident.
Paderelle for science: the study of ocean currents
However nice, these ducks obviously constituted environmental damage, adding to the tons of plastic waste daily poured into the seas by man. The oceanographers However, they found a way to draw something positive from the accident: floating and extremely resistant objects are in fact, still today, an excellent method for study the complex reality of ocean currents.
Specifically, i findings of Floatees of the first two years were already compared in 1994 with the existing ocean models and with the evidence of Small scale experiments (bottles released for scientific purposes in the 1960s) and of another great accidental dispersion in the sea of 61000 Nike shoes, in 1990.
Considering that less than 3% floating objects, whether they are voluntarily released or lost by mistake, It is found and reported to researchers or authorities, exploiting similar disasters can be Very useful for scholars: experiments with bottles often involve a few tens or a few hundred objects, with recoveries of just some unitswhile in the case of the Nikes they were recovered More than 1600 shoes.
The models, updated with the data of the finds in 1994, led scholars to predict the journey to the Arctic and the Atlantic of the North by the ducks, confirmed hypothesis from the findings of the 2000s.
The plastic duck: a historical toy
The first plastic ducks already appeared at the end of the 1800s, thanks to the work of Charles Goodyearinventor of the vulcanized rubber and founder of the homonymous tire company. The materials used made them heavy, not able to float: only in the 1930s were they marketed “empty” ducksusable as water pistols (designed by the inventor Eleanor Shannahan in 1931) and those floats for the bathroom, marketed by Disney in agreement with a latex manufacturer.
Even today these objects are widespread, also for collection: according to the site Guinness World Recordthe largest collection of duck is that of Charlotte Lee, an American woman who owned in 2021 5 631 different specimens.
The ducks have also become some Protest symbols: From the 2015 events in Belgrade against the “failing” of a river area, to Anti -corruption protests of 2017 in Russia and against the power of the 2020 soldiers in Thailand, In different corners of the world land squares have often colored yellow.
