Il Nuovo Postiglione - A French sailor's personal 'Plastic Odyssey'

From the deck of the cargo ship he was working on, Bernard was stunned to discover mountains of rubbish piled up in Hann Bay, once a white sandy beach that had become an open sewer in the Senegalese capital Dakar.

Thickets of rubbish were almost everywhere along the coast, "washing into the sea with the tides and waves," the 34-year-old sailor told AFP in an interview.

It was, he said, a terrible shock. "At sea, you don't see the plastic."

Deeply moved by seeing fishermen pulling tangled webs of plastic from their nets, Bernard -– newly graduated from France's Merchant Navy -– enlisted another engineer, Alexandre Dechelotte, to embark on what he dubbed "Plastic Odyssey".

The plan was to complete a round-the-world expedition aboard a 40-metre (130-foot) laboratory ship to raise awareness at their many ports of call -- especially among children -– about the devastating impact of the 20 tonnes of plastic waste dumped into the oceans every minute of every day.

The three-year expedition, which partnered with local associations along their route, is almost complete.

- 'Avoid using it' -

Bernard secured financial sponsors, starting with a major French cosmetics brand that promoted the partnership as part of its commitment to increase the proportion of recycled plastic in its products.

But he said he was under no illusions: he knows that his initiative has had a modest impact on the global fight against plastic pollution.

He is also aware of earlier projects with similar goals that fell short of their ambitions.

The Ocean Cleanup launch by 18-year-old Dutch inventor Boyan Slat in 2013 – targeting the notorious Great Pacific Garbage Patch between Hawaii and California -- attracted money and attention but was hampered by design flaws and logistical limitations. A recent reboot of the system has shown greater potential for plastic removal at scale.

Another initiative launched from France in 2018, the SeaCleaners, also reported disappointing yields of plastic pollution, and folded operations last year under the shadow of financial mismanagement.

But Bernard said the cause was too important to ignore, and aimed to prove that even small-scale efforts were critical in striving for a future with less plastic. Plastic Odyssey today has a staff of 35.

"The real solution to plastic pollution is to avoid using it," he said.

Nearly 200 nations are huddled in Geneva this week and next to forge a treaty to tackle the plastics crisis, and one of the most divisive issues on the table is whether to aim for reducing plastics production at the source, rather than simply cleaning up pollution after the fact.

- 30 stopovers -

Giving up his dream of piloting ferries off the Normandy coast, Bernard left France on October 1, 2022. He is currently in Mayotte, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, and is nearing the end of his 30 three-week stops in three continents.

His odyssey has taken him across the Mediterranean Sea as well as the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans.

During stops in Marseille, Beirut, Dakar, Recife, Madras (Chennai) and two dozen other ports, he met with local associations, start-ups and companies working to collect, sort or recycle plastic.

He marvels, he said, at the "inventiveness" of the people he met, especially those who have lost everything.

He recalled an entrepreneur in Lebanon who collected recyclable household waste door-to-door from 60,000 people in a country that no longer has a public service for disposing of plastic.

Two and a half years into his adventure Bernard gave up his apartment, and he now lives on the boat.

The Plastic Odyssey has catalogued more than hundred local solutions for doing without plastic, which is derived from petroleum.

Bernard has adopted several of them, including one "that works very well on board the boat" to make water drinkable, eliminating the need for plastic bottles.

"This has saved us 25,000 bottles of water in two years -- almost a tonne of plastic," he calculated.

A.Rastelli--INP