I am Anna Cummins, and I'm a self dubbed green lifestylist. Originally from LA, I've lived all over the place - Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Monterey, Santa Cruz, and I'm now back in Santa Monica. I've taught organic cooking/gardenining, ecology, green living practices, marine conservation (in Spanish), and am an avid bike supporter. But in 2002, I heard Captain Charles Moore give a talk that forever changed my world. His research expeditions to the North Pacific Gyre had found oceanic regions where plastic particles outweighed zooplankton. I was stunned. Our consumerism here on land could really disrupt ecosystems in our massive ocean? I vowed to get involved, and began volunteering with the Algalita Marine Research Foundation.

Skip forward to 2007. Received an invite to Captain Moore's 60th birthday. So I grabbed my friend Sara from the Green Ambassadors, and we headed down to Long Beach. There, I met Dr. Marcus Eriksen, Algalita's Director of Research and Education. And a very striking man, I couldn't help but notice....

Our personal passions quickly brought us together, and 6 months later we found ourselves in the middle of the North Pacfic Gyre on Captain Moore's research boat. I was the lone female sailor in the crew of 6, sailing from Hawaii to Los Angeles to collect ocean surface samples. When Marcus proposed, 2,000 miles from land, 6 months after we'd begun dating, I didn't hesitate to say yes!

What we found on this voyage however alarmed us - twice what Moore had found less than 10 years ago. The entire Pacific Ocean, from California to Japan, is turning into a plastic soup. Most of the trash is small, broken down pieces of plastic, spread out over an area twice the size of the United States. And most of it is coming from all of us - right here on land. We decided to do something crazy to get the world's attention, and luckily met just the man to take it on with us. Joel Paschal, one of the 6 sailors on board and a marine debris expert, agreed to help us build a raft from 15,000 plastic bottles, and sail with Marcus to Hawaii. 2,600 miles on JUNK.

We no sooner landed in LA than we began hustling to raise money and collect materials. 15,000 plastic bottles, an airplane fuselage, a bunch of old sailboat masts, some solar panels, and many willing volunteers. 2 1/2 months later, JUNKraft was ready to set sail! The plan: Marcus and Joel would sail to Hawaii in 6 weeks, while I stayed on line and managed communications/PR. After they landed, Marcus and I would hop on our bikes and ride from Vancouver to Mexico, giving dozens of presentations about plastics in our oceans, and what we can do about it.

12 weeks later, JUNK was still at sea! Marcus and Joel had weathered a few storms, narrowly missed 4 hurricanes, run out of food, and had a miraculous encounter with a woman rowing across the Pacific. In total, the journey took twice as long as we'd planned, and though I was able to talk to Marcus daily by Satellite phone, it was a rather nerve wracking time.

But it worked. JUNK laded in Honolulu on August 26th, to a crowd of cheering fans, reporters, and photographers. The eco-adventure had captured the hearts of a wide audience, including Martha Stewart, intrigued to hear why two men would risk their lives to deliver a message. "It makes no sense", Marcus will often explain, "that we use this material plastic, designed to last forever, to make products that we then throw away. It's simply irresponsible". We're finding our plastic in the stomachs of marine mammals, seabirds, turtles - and even the fish you and I eat. We've got to stop the problem at its source.

After JUNKraft landed, we finished up this project with JUNKride - cycling 2,000 miles from Vancouver to Canada, to give 40 presentations on plastic marine pollution, and give away gyres samples full of plastic and plankton to legislators and educators. And along the way, we got married...

We're now launching our next major project called "5 Gyres", to expand our research on plastic pollution to the 4 other major gyres. The word is getting out more about plastic in the North Pacific - the infamous "garbage patch', but few realize there are actually 5 major oceanic gyres in the world. In January we'll cross the North Atlantic Gyre, and in August, the South Atlantic, in partnership with both the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and Pangaea Explorations. We'll sail on Pangaea's 72 foot steel hulled sailing vessel. We'll be collecting surface samples to study plastic pollution, and fish to study plastic ingestion. Our goal is to bring this issue to a global audience, and mobilize communities to take action - this is problem affects us all.

Following our research, we'll take the message on the road with a big communications project,  "The Last Straw". We'll do another cycling/outreach tour on the East Coast, visiting Universities, schools, and organizations. We'll then build another plastic boat called STRA in Paris, out of thousands - perhaps millions - of discarded plastic straws. STRA will drift down the Seine River, spreading our message along the way, and then cross the English Channel.

We'll need partners every step of the way, so get in touch and jump on board!