Durbanite swims for plastic pollution awareness
Sarah Ferguson set a new world record in her Swim Against Plastic, becoming the first person to swim around Easter Island.
DURBAN physiotherapist and endurance swimmer, Sarah Ferguson recently drew attention to plastic pollution in a campaign encouraging people to rethink plastic and empower them to be part of the solution.
In her effort to do this, Sarah set a new world record in her Swim Against Plastic, becoming the first person to swim around the entire perimeter of Easter Island.
Sarah achieved the world-record swim last month, swimming 63.5km continuously over a duration of 19 hours and eight minutes, finishing ahead of schedule in a swim expected to take approximately 24 hours to complete. Sarah began the swim by officially launching the Swim Against Plastic campaign.
“It’s an incredibly special moment for my team and me right now. To have pioneered a swim like this is still something I am wrapping my head around! But to have succeeded in doing something no one else has done is both humbling and amazingly exciting. I hope that just as I swam around Easter Island, one stroke at a time, people choose to make one small decision at a time around single-use plastic to help preserve this beautiful blue ocean of ours,” said Sarah, who is the founder of Breathe Conservation and an Ambassador for Plastic Oceans International.
The goal of Swim Against Plastic was to encourage people to rethink their habits toward single-use, or throwaway plastic, and empower them to change and become part of the solution. Swim Against Plastic: Easter Island explored how local plastic pollution is impacted on a micro level – by exponentially growing tourism, increased population, commercial fishing, and waste management – while providing a model to translate to a macro level for global application. Events include the record-breaking swim, education forums and beach cleanups, all coordinated with members of the Easter Island community.
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Sarah swam through dangerous currents in very high salt content, facing many serious risks to accomplish this human first.
Easter Island was chosen for Swim Against Plastic because the surrounding waters contain one of the highest concentrations of microplastics in the Pacific Ocean, despite its distant location. The Chilean territory is considered the most remote inhabited island on the planet, more than 2,000 miles from the Chilean coast, between Chile and New Zealand, with the nearest island over 1,200 miles away.
Most microplastics on Easter Island originate from sources thousands of miles away, and along with larger pieces of plastic, travel to the island as a result of the South Pacific Gyre. An additional 20 tons of trash is produced daily on the island, which has prevalent waste management issues, especially related to the exponentially growing tourism industry and increasing population.
Coinciding with the swim, a beach clean-up, hosted by Te Mau o te Vaikava and Plastic Oceans, collected 600 pounds of plastic pollution from the Viringa o Tuki area, a well-known local surf spot. Microplastics samples were also gathered from the beach clean-up for future analysis by Arizona State University.
People worldwide are encouraged to join Swim Against Plastic to end plastic pollution. To get informed, inspired, rethink plastic, and make changes to be part of the solution, visit SwimAgainstPlastic.com, and follow #SwimAgainstPlastic on social media
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