Plastic Dragon Monster - image courtesy Helen Lockhart

There’s an urban legend that tells of a colossal floating island in the high seas. The trouble is it’s no longer the stuff of legends; it’s real.

Funded in part by our client PETCO, artist Simon Bannister has boarded the transatlantic Sea Dragon, to go and find it.

The journey will take him from Cape Town, past the Skeleton Coast, through St. Helena Island and onwards to intercept the South Atlantic Gyre.

It’s here that Simon and the rest of the crew will find monsters. Plastikological life forms pulled together in a massive accumulation zone.

It sounds like another mysterious episode of TV’s ‘LOST’, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, unlike LOST, it’s not ok if you don’t know what’s going on.

As far as we know, this is the final resting place of countless micro pieces of plastic debris. Plastic, like PET bottles, that most of us just chuck in the trash.

PET is 100% recyclable and still 100% safe after it’s recycled. So by discarding it, we’ve rendered it useless and sent it to a place where it’s now potentially hazardous.

Simon will observe and assist the 5 Gyres Institute aboard Sea Dragon in conducting important research, continuing the tradition of marine conservation.

They’ll begin to answer questions like “What Impact does plastic have on marine life and ultimately humans?” “What do we do about it?” And show us the truth.

Follow Simon’s journey here, see his exhibition at the Two Oceans Aquarium and,
if you aren’t doing so already, please recycle your PET plastic.

(View the original post at www.petco.co.za)