Canada's ‘Robinson Crusoe’ leads lone war against single-use plastics

By Yeter Ada Seko

ISTANBUL (AA) - Zoe Lucas, who has lived alone for more than 45 years on Sable Island, which lies off the coast of Canada, collects and records the garbage that washes ashore, and contributes to international research with her studies on plastics.

The academic first went to Sable Island at the age of 21, as a volunteer member of a scientific research team. After graduating from the Nova Scotia University of Art and Design in 1977, Lucas decided to settle on this uninhabited island.

Her work on the 2-kilometer-wide (1.24-mile) and 40-kilometer-long island (24.85-mile), which is also home to 500 wild horses, has won her international acclaim.

Lucas said it was her fondness for horses that drew her to Sable Island.

Stating that she fell in love with the island when she first arrived, Lucas said: "When I went back to art school, all I thought about was going back to Sable Island. For this reason, I volunteered again to cook for a research group working on the island. This actually brought me to where I am today."

After she started living on the island, Lucas said that her admiration for nature outweighed her love for horses.

"Over time, you start to get to know the weather, vegetation, landscape, bees and insects, and you realize that this is unique. Living on Sable Island feels like living in a watercolor painting," she said.

Stating that the weather conditions determine her daily activities, she said every day is different.

"I'm going to the east of the island this morning and I'm going to check on seabirds for the project I'm running. But let's say I'm on the way and if I see beached dolphins on my way, I have to stop and take all the measurements. It may even cause me to pause my work on birds. This is tomorrow. It means I have to wake up with a whole new plan for tomorrow.”

Lucas also stated that transportation to the island, which is recognized as a national park by Canada, is costly due to the lack of necessary infrastructure, however, the island has started to become popular, and tourists who come from time to time can stay up to a few weeks.

- Changes on the island

Noting that the water level in the ponds in the region has decreased due to sand over the last 10 years, she said many species have left the island.

"When I first came here, there were a lot of eels, they are now gone. Many invertebrates in the less visible water, too. There were three kinds of leeches here in the past. Now there is one. Of course, there are many examples. Various studies are still continuing on whether the changes on the island are caused by climate change."

Sharing the view that the litter on the shore provides very clear data on the state of the litter density in the ocean, Lucas said: "I started working on the garbage that hit the shore of the island in the first years I came to the island. At first, it was not a study focused on plastic pollution, but rather a study on all wastes. That's why I was looking for all kinds of waste, such as metal, glass and plastic, that washed up on the shore of the island.”

“Plastics started to become a big problem. For a while, I was only focusing on certain types of plastic. But now I'm looking at all the plastics that can be data for global studies. For example, the US has studies on a global scale in this direction. Data from here or from other parts of the world,” she added.

"The data helps to see the big picture, so you can see the circulation of plastics in the oceans, where they come from and the effects."

- Waste from many different countries

Explaining that they have carried out many studies on the plastics washing up on the shores of Sable Island, the academic said that one of the studies is brand-oriented and they are trying to show how much each brand pollutes the oceans.

She further added that beverage bottles, shampoo, personal care product boxes and yogurt containers are the wastes that hit the shore the most.

Pointing out that a study was conducted on the countries where the plastics reaching the island were produced based on the information written on them, Lucas drew attention to the fact that many plastics produced in Italy, UK, Greece, and Egypt hit the shores of the island.

Adding that these may have been thrown from ships passing near Canada, or that the currents in the oceans could carry plastics to regions far from where they were thrown, Lucas said that they also came across a waste with Turkish inscriptions on, and that this surprised her.

Commenting that it is no longer surprising to come across a waste produced in Australia or Indonesia, Lucas said: "This is an indication of how global the problem is. That's the message this study wants to convey."

- Balloons pollute the island from the air

Complaining about plastic balloons, Lucas stated that she is conducting a separate study for these as well.

"Some of these balloons have clear information on who sent them. In this way, I can reach the person who sent the balloon by e-mail or phone. I tell the owners of the balloons that the balloon they left in the sky reached Sable Island," he said.

Mentioning that there has been an increase in the number of plastics hitting the island in recent years in parallel with the global increase in marine pollution, Lucas informed that the collected plastics are taken from the island to the mainland and some of this garbage is recycled.

Reiterating that this is not a permanent solution and that the energy used for recycling is mostly obtained from fossil fuels, Lucas underlined that the best solution is to reduce the use of plastic.