Pacific toy spill fuels ocean current pathways research

While a container vessel was crossing the North Pacific Ocean along the great circle route from Hong Kong to Tacoma, Wash., severe storm conditions were encountered near the International Date Line on January 10,1992. At44.7°N, 178.1°E, twelve 12.2‐m containers were washed overboard, one of which held about 29,000 plastic bathtub toy animals (Figure 1). Some of the steel cargo containers may have been torn open by the vessel's stays as they fell overboard or may have been ruptured by collisions with other containers. Ten months after the spill, plastic toys began showing up on beaches near Sitka, Alaska. According to computer simulations the toys drifted toward the southeast Alaska coast, past both the site where about 61,000 Nike shoes spilled from a boat in 1990 and Ocean Weather Station Papa, where many drift bottles have been released.