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Welcome back to the Clean Sailors podcast. Let's talk about sea, marine, sailing and

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keep it clean. I'm your host Holly, founder of Clean Sailors and a sailor myself with

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a passion for the health of our mighty oceans. Through conversations with experts, innovators

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and activists, all working towards improving the health of our seas, we're showcasing the

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people and projects, changing the way things are done. Now we know since the 1950s, GRP

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and FRP hulls, glass and fiber reinforced plastics became the go-to for boat building.

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These materials were revolutionary, not just for maintenance, cost and performance, but

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also increasing the accessibility of boats to a much wider audience. Fast forward several

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decades however, and these materials, meaning thousands and thousands of boats, are at end

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of life with no formal recycling opportunities anywhere in the world. So what currently happens

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to boats when they die and what impact are they having on the environment? I'm joined

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by Dr. Karina Chokhan, principal lecturer in ecotoxicology marine biology at the University

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of Brighton. Thank you for joining me Karina to help dissect this topic.

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Thank you for having me.

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I'm really excited by this because as we mentioned earlier, we often believe that sailing is

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quite a low impact. Sport, pleasure, pastime, because we use the power of the wind, but

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obviously we are increasingly aware of the material substances that we use on our boats

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to preserve our boats that are obviously having a significantly detrimental impact on our

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environment. You've obviously been exploring fibreglass and sort of glass reinforced fibre

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for a while from an environmental perspective. How did you first get into this specific subject

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and what have you been finding?

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This is a really nice question because I really like to talk about the start of this research,

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the starting point of this research. I often say that, you know, like a lot of other discoveries

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if you want, everything happened by accident. Years ago, probably about six, seven years

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ago, I was working in Chichester Harbour in collaboration with Chichester Harbour Conservancy

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because the Conservancy and the community in the harbour were very worried about the

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plastic pollution. At that time, they had a lot of measures in place to reduce the macroplastic,

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you know, all the recycling beams set up around the harbour, around the pathways, but they

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wanted to know a little bit more about the microplastic. So a team from Brighton University

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spent about myself included, spent a whole summer in Chichester Harbour collecting water,

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collecting sediment and also collecting oysters and mussels for analysis in the laboratory

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and to identify microplastics basically. Well, we were really, really amazed by the

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particles that we discovered in oysters and in mussels. There were those tiny, tiny shards,

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very, very dense, very brittle, very glass looking like under the microscope and we had

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no idea where they were potentially coming from. I'm not a boater, I never had a boat,

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I never heard of GRP before at that moment in my life. And so we started all this detective

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work, you know, to understand what is it. It's something that the oysters will produce,

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you know, pretty much like the pearls, but then it was present in mussels as well. And

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so slowly by, and there was nothing, no research that was published at that time, you know,

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for us to have a reference for that material. So we had to do a little bit more chemistry,

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analysis and then spectrometry as well. And we discovered that it's glass. It is E type

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glass, huge quantity accumulated in both types of organisms. And then we discovered that

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actually we collected those organisms from in front of some very active boatyards in

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December, January. So when the boatyards were at maximum activity, and so slowly by slowly

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we realized that yes, this is a GRP product. So this is the fiberglass that is coming from

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the GRP is coming from all the activities that are happening in the boatyard at that

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particular time. And then everything started from there. That was the moment when we realized,

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wow, this is yet another contaminant in the environment that we have no idea about. It's

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still a very, very little research about the presence of this contaminant in the environment,

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I have to say. This is something that we definitely need to address.

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So just to recap, you were finding not just sort of everyday microplastics in the water

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and in the flesh of these organisms, effectively oysters and pearls, you were actually finding

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like hair like shards of glass within them. So that was obviously could only be from GRP

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sort of FRP holds. It was very interesting because in the way we were lucky because we

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collected the organisms from in front of a boatyard. And so what we found in the oysters

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and mussels were very tiny fragments, identical in width. So they were all tubular, transparent

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and almost identical in size. So they were like 100 microns, 50 to 100 microns. So this

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is a tenth of your hair diameter. And that took us well later on talking to boaters to

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work within the boatyard and so on. We realized that those specific particles that were ingested

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by our organism must have come from a sort of procedure, maybe sanding, something that

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created those almost identical particles that have been available in the environment. So

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it was easy in a way to put two and two together. In front of the boatyard, the shards were

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almost identical. The oysters were there at that moment in time. The boatyard was very

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active because it was December, January when the boats are going through the mentoring.

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So everything aligned perfectly. Obviously later on we had pieces of GRP, old, new and

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so on. And we analyzed those again chemically and spectrophotometer. And we proved that the

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same fingerprint, chemical fingerprint and spectrometric photoclack fingerprint is in

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those pieces as to the ones that we found in the organism, just to prove the provenance

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obviously. And as I said, I'm not a boater. I didn't know anything about boats at that

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time. All I was interested in was the impact on my organism on oysters and mussels. And

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so I started with 100 micron shards and then a little bit like you uncover piece by piece

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of a big jigsaw. I ended up on looking at big boats, abandoned boats and end of life

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boats. And I realized that yes, the problem is it's really big.

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I hear you. I guess that in some ways it would follow that any scraping or grinding or repair

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of hulls without obviously adequate capture of all the material that's coming off would

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potentially whether airborne or otherwise drift into adjacent water, which you found

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within oysters. Not okay. I appreciate because it is a contaminant and it is toxic and it

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is a pollutant. But it would follow that if the immediacy of boatyard, oysters in the

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water almost adjacent to it, that there may be some markers in there. But this is a much

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bigger problem, isn't it? And I know that you've just alluded to that kind of that you're

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always scratching at the surface of something. And this is really a big issue because of

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the number of boats that we have on our planet. And secondarily, the number that are now almost

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reaching end of life. And I think I'd love to sort of dive into this further because

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we're talking hundreds of thousands coming up end of life every year now. We're talking

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about 35 40 million plus registered leisure boats on the planet and that's registered

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with hundreds of thousands of those coming up for end of life every year. So not just

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my little one boatyard and the oysters outside of it. But what does this actually mean in

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terms of size and scale for our marine environment?

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It can be potentially devastating. Myself and my colleagues, we're looking at the natural

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degradation of the material, you know, only boats sitting on the water or even worse in

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some sort of intertidal area where they will be exposed to, you know, natural degradation

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from the salt water, different temperatures, solar impact as well. But also in intertidal,

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you'd have boats that sit on the sediment, they are a little bit scraped against the

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sediment. So and this is just a natural degradation. And it's astonishing how much plastic paint

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fiberglass on top of all the additional chemicals can be leaked from just the weathering of the

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boat. And to add to this, we have now a really powerful scientific paper that was published

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by a group from Germany to show that 80% of microplastics that are present in the North

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Sea are probably associated with the boating industry. So forget the Sainsbury bag or the

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whatever steel water bottle. It's the degradation, the natural degradation of the boat hull

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and the anti fouling paint, the normal paint, the resin from the GRP and then going into

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the fiberglass that actually leaks into the water and contributes to this microplastic

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pollution. What scares me the most is the fact that we have this powder, the GRP powder,

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that is a combination of resin and fiberglass, two very, very different components in terms

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of their chemical characteristics, but also their behavior in the water. The powder looks

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pretty much like flour or baking soda or whatever, it's just powder. So when you sprinkle that

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powder in the water, you realize that you have a sequence, a component of that powder

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that is going to stay on top of the water and that is the resin. And then you're going

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to have the other component that is going to drop down on the sediment and that is the

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fiberglass. So suddenly you have two components that are going to have a maximum impact on

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both areas of an estuary, of a marine, of a lake or whatever. You have the plastic that

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is going to float on top, accessible for whatever aquatic organism are at that level, accessible

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even for birds or for insects that are coming to feed on top of the water. And then you

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will have the glass that is going to drop down on the sediment and that's going to be

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available for any bottom dwellers or any beavers, any benthic organisms. So it's like maximum

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impact, minimum effort with maximum impact and that is quite scary. And that also thinking

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about the behavior of those two components later on, you can think of the plastic being

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drifted away by waves and by tides and so on by currents. But then you have the fiberglass

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that is probably going to sink in the sediment. But also, and this is something that we recently

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found, fiberglass that is able to almost like impale soft material. We found pieces of algae,

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for example, a small snail, pieces of other organic material that look like pink cushions

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because they had about, you know, tens and tens of fiberglass impaled into it. And it's

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a, I suspect it's a combination of currents and the contact between that soft organism

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or piece of organic material with those very very sharp shards and that's going to have

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this effect. And then you have this piece of organic material, we have a picture of a very

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tiny snail, glassy, that looks like a pink cushion. You have those organics just circulating

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in the water and they are food for something. They are food for a fish, they are food for

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a different organism, bigger organism. And that's how you have the transfer in the traffic

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chain and also the transport from the area of contamination to various other areas.

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I guess that's the point. There's no such thing as a way. So if it's been drifting

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from one area, it's going to end up somewhere else. It's fascinating. I mean, no one can

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see me except for you. I'm wincing. I've been wincing since really we started this conversation

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because, you know, arguably it is a very uncomfortable one. It's uncomfortable obviously as a sailor

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and as a boat owner, but also almost as a human who relies on the ocean as much as anybody

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else does. But I think what I hadn't appreciated was that the whole body of water, the water

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column effectively was polluted by this substance in that, as you mentioned, the resin sort

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of powder sits up top and then you slightly dense the particulate matter settling down

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towards sort of the seabed. Largely that may not be too much of an issue unless you're

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in shallows or you've got bottom dredging going on and the whole thing is just getting

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to it. And I know the Oldenburg study, it was the University of Oldenburg, I think it was,

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who produced that research around the North Sea, the German by because we looked at that

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with regards to antifal in particular. And you're right, it was 80, 80% of microplastics

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in the water up there were attributed to shipping and boating. And at the time, we were kind

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of still understanding that that was mostly to do with antifal. But what your research

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has been able to show is that boats are always shedding. This isn't just an end of life issue

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whereby I dump my boat on a beach somewhere because I can't afford or nor do I want to

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take care of it, but it's bashing away, it starts to break down all the pieces that are

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in the environment. We're talking about any boat on the water is shedding microfibres and

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also glass fibers, right? Yes, it's the normal weathering of the material. And as I said,

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it's a combination of solar radiation, various temperatures and mechanical impact of waves

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and jetty, your next jetty or yes, it's the normal weathering basically. Yes. So we're

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talking going back to that really high figure, which I think the IMO has kind of reported

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on calculating roughly how many boats we've got on our planet registered. We know it's

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at least about 40 million, right? And they're the registered ones. So each of those boats,

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our boats shedding and then each of our boats aging ultimately to a point where they become

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end of life vessels and ultimately at the moment have no formal recycling opportunities.

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Basically, that's kind of it. Indeed. I can see that you're very disturbed. I totally

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appreciate that we have to remember that this has been a design flaw from the very beginning.

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The manufacturer should have a stewardship of the material, you know, when you create

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something, you have to think about what's going to happen to that thing at the very

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end of life, you know, how about what's going to happen? Yes, in 2030, 40 years, what do

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we do with it? And especially because we're talking about huge, huge products, it's not

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just a needle or, you know, it's a boat. What's going to happen with that boat at the very

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end of life? So this I find absolutely amazing that the industry is booming and the production

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is growing every year with the same material or very little modification. Yes, the resins

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can be quite different now and that ultimately it's still an non recyclable material that

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is used to build tens of meters of boats in the end. I'm amazed because I'm thinking,

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right, if the same thing would happen with the cars, for example, when you when the car

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gets old and there's nothing to do with it, if we would abandon the cars on the street

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or in parks or whatever, that's it, it's all nothing to do with it. What would have happened?

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But with the boats, nobody says anything. They are abandoned in cricks and in estuaries

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and more in your face or less in your face places. And it's still like business as usual.

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I have a very dear friend in Canada who runs a charity. It's called said boat societies.

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And he gets a grant from the Canadian government. He's around Vancouver. He has to apply for

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a grant from the Canadian government to retrieve abandoned boats. For this, he has to first

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do a survey of the area and roughly write a report to say how many boats where they

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are. But most importantly, he has to prove that the boats are leaking oil or they are

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obstructing navigational pathways. Because otherwise he doesn't get any money. The government

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doesn't care about any other boats that are sunk or half broken or, you know, just abandoned

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on the beach or wherever. If they're not leaking oil or they're not obstructing any pathway.

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And he can see, you know, because he's local and he can see the boats degrading under his

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eyes yet another piece here and another piece here and the fibres being exposed and birds

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coming and picking up various bits because obviously you'll have some growth on those

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wrecks. But without this scientific proof, he can't do anything because that's what

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the government is throwing back. We know for sure that the oil leakage is going to contaminate

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the environment and we know that oil can be carcinogenic and la la la. If there is any

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obstruction, obviously there is a very great danger for any other passing boat and so on.

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But other than that, that's it. I think this is where I'm coming from. I can offer and

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I am trying to offer this very basic impact, which is not basic. It's actually very complicated

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and it's very painful. And that's why from the very beginning I started to use the term

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of asbestos like when I'm talking about the fibreglass because at least that's going to

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ring some very loud bells. And it's not, I mean, I'm not just throwing words over there,

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you know, it's actually my scientific opinion is that yes, they are asbestos like particles.

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You have the fibreglass that can't be degraded in any other chemical component. It's a glass

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and it will always be a glass. It won't be dissolved or anything in the natural environment.

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It has a very, very small diameter, about 20 microns, which is extremely small. And so

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once it enters a tissue, a soft organic tissue, it's like a splinter. Okay, you can extract

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the splinter from your fingers, but if it gets into your lungs, and that's why asbestos

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was considered and is still considered so dangerous because once inside the organ is,

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you can't excrete it, it's not coming out, it's going to be embedded in trajea, in lungs,

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in other organs. And then the organ is obviously going to react to have an inflammation and

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that's going to get more and more serious. And it's the same mechanism in any other organ

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is once it's in, it's going to stay in, it's not going to come out. And that's quite tragic.

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It is. And you said I was looking disturbed and honestly, I am. I think it almost shed

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such a different light on it. And I think the two things are I appreciate your comment

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around when we've produced things that we ought to be thinking about what does this

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look like in 10, 20, 30, 40 years. And I appreciate in the 1950s, the advent of GRP FRP certainly

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at scale. I'm not sure necessarily we had this sort of technology, the mindset. Obviously

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the scale was incredibly different. I mean, now we're talking 40 million plus boats, because

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pretty much, you know, I'd say like 80% of those produced over the last years are still

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around today, right? It's just compounding, it's continuing. So in some ways, I'm slightly

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forgiving of us not having that mindset, because I think I don't think anyone would have foreseen

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this becoming so prevalent. There being so many such a large portion of the world's demographic

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having the accessibility and the income even to partake in leisure boating in particular.

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And I appreciate the science, you know, from the 1950s today, as you will know more than

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anybody has sort of come on exceptional leaps and bounds. So we now know what we know as

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damaging as it is. And just going back to your point around the sort of content of these

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substances once they get into organisms, we have obviously seen this, there's a lot of

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research out now, as you well know, that these kind of elements and compounds within any

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kind of organic matter can change, you know, feeding activity, impact hormone levels and

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reproductive systems and reduce the population sizes. And as you said, there's a food chain

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going on here too. So any insect that's feeding on the water, picking up any of this resin

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dust is then being eaten by birds is then being eaten by something else. And it kind

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of is ongoing. And it's not insignificant what you mentioned about these particles being

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sort of asbestos like, because we know that microplastics obviously have a massive impact

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on us anyway. But these fiberglass particles are slightly more serious to the extent that

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as you said, they're shards, and they are they get stuck. So, you know, there's cancer

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related, there's chronic lung diseases, there's heart and respiratory diseases as a as a result

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of it. Honestly, none of it sounds particularly positive, aside from the fact that we now

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know this, now we understand it, and we've got the research and brilliant brains such

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as yourself showing us because I think that's another major cause of inaction has been,

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I don't think we've yet mass understood or mass appreciated the impact of using these

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kind of materials on our marine environment. And certainly within the same marine and the

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boatbuilding industry, your research in the long history and trajectory of that is relatively

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new. That's absolutely true. And when you think about the impact of those particles,

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and especially fiberglass, the potential impact that they can have on the organism, you have

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to remember that we kind of know about how dangerous they are on human health, for example,

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on human body, because we have all those rules and regulations for the boat workers and also

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in the factories, you know, fiberglass factories, so we know very well, masks, all the PPE protection

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and how strict they should be and so on. So we're very aware of that. Well, exactly the

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same thing happens in the marine environment. We have those shards that are present over

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there, they can impale the organism, so they can have all those fiberglass or, you know,

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like tiny javelins basically embedded in their outside skin or carapace or whatever they

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have. But it's also the problem of, you know, ingesting those and then not being able to

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get rid of them. We had a lot of experimentation with microplastics and I think one good outcome

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of a lot of laboratory studies was that most of the organism were able to ingest the microplastics

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and then excrete almost 60, 70, 80% of them, you know. I had students, the student projects

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that came up with this percentage, you know, muscles exposed for 24 hours and then depurated

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for another 24 hours and they managed to get rid of the plastic. A lot of it, not everything,

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but a lot of it. It's not the same with the fiberglass. We had muscles that we collected

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from Chichester Harbour, we kept in the lab for about 10 days and then when we dissected

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the muscles, the fiberglass was still there. And it's logical. Yes, once they entered it,

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they're not coming out. I said a little bit earlier that we're yet to establish the true

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size of the contamination and I'm really worried that thinking about how the fiberglass can

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interact with the soft organism and I'm thinking about worms here, you know, sea worms or just

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earthworms. Any soft organism, because until now, yes, I was talking about muscles and

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oysters, but any soft organism that is present in the sediment. And here I'm thinking again

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about Chichester Harbour where I started all this research and the fact that natural England,

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for example, downgraded the habitats in Chichester Harbour about two, three years ago to unfavorable,

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the fact that they lose salt marshes at the rate of two acres a year just because the

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sediment has become too anoxic. It's just that black foul smelling sediment that is so easily

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washed away by the tides and by the ways and that's how they lose land basically over there.

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And I'm thinking that the nailing the coffin could be this fact that this fiberglass accumulated

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in the sediment having such a drastic impact on soft organism like the worms that are so important

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to create spaces in the sediment to allow the nutrients to allow the oxygen to penetrate into

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the sediment and then to allow also the sea grass, the weeds, the sea weeds and the salt marsh to

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develop. That can be quite a dramatic picture. And I'm not saying this just hypothetically,

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we had about two years ago, we ran an international project and Chichester Harbour,

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a Conservancy was one of the partners and we commissioned a study with the Natural History

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Museum, a study to survey the biodiversity in the sediment in several locations in Chichester

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Harbour. So we had a specialist from the Natural History Museum collecting samples of the sediment

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and we were looking especially at B-valves at Moros. He came back completely, completely amazed

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to say that there is nothing, there is no life in the samples that we provided and it's all that

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black anoxic sediment with some very old shells or broken shells that show that yes, there was life

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at some point, but there isn't anymore. That's how I started to picture this idea that we have a chemical

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contamination, you know, sewage and all other substances that are present in the mortar in

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Chichester Harbour. But we definitely have to look at this particular contamination and especially

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the fibreglass and see how that might have had a massive role in wiping out a lot of organies

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from the sediment. Wow, it's hard to know what to say at times. I think it really isn't a pretty

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picture and it's actually quite fascinating. Obviously, I grew up sailing in Chichester waters

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and around the Solent so I know it very well and obviously know that this is the absolute hotbed

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of boating activity in the UK if not certainly probably the second largest in Europe.

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So as a proxy for the opportunities and damage caused by the boating in the shipping industry,

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this is probably as good as it gets as a sort of test bed as an environment. So what you're

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saying obviously is the impact of this sort of the byproducts of boating and obviously abandon

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boats also are almost sucking the life out of incredibly important ecosystems. So you mentioned

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sort of the salt marshes and so mudflat. I know exactly the type of mud and sediment you're talking

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about because I've been stuck in it once on my knees and it is horrific stuff, devoid of everything.

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It smells like something, I mean you wouldn't wish it on anybody but it is very anoxic as you

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mentioned. So like you said the importance of having sort of those soft species like worms to

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aerate it the same as you would having you know worms great in your garden to keep the

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moving through the sea without that obviously you then can't, there is no ecosystem there

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really because nothing can grow without having that oxygen provided. So it is an incredibly

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stark description Karina about the impact that this is sort of having. Locally I'm sitting in the

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solent having this conversation with you right now but appreciating then so we know that this is

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an issue, we know that it's an issue for every boat that's in existence today because all of them

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are constantly shedding and we also know that hundreds of thousands a year are becoming disused

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effectively. Traditionally they are still dumped for landowners to deal with or they're scuttled so

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they're you know someone sticks a drill through the hull and that's and sinks on and I read something

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really interesting in some of your research around even the impacts of natural disasters so the

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hurricane season I think at least 30 to 60 thousand boats each year or every time there's this major

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hurricane normally on the other side of the Atlantic in the Caribbean results in obviously

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scuttling tens of thousands of boats too so we're constantly using the ocean and the sea as

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literally the dumping ground these old boats a bit out of sight out of mind you know bury the

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thing put it in the water we forget about it believing that somehow that dilution of the

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pollution is still the solution which I hope to died out in the 70s as a mentality but clearly

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not so we know that this is an issue right we also know that there are no formal recycling

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facilities anywhere in the world really to deal with this issue we also know that legislation

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international legislation doesn't yet appear to be covering topics such as end of life so I

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know they talk a lot around obviously discharging grey water and black water you've got to be certain

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sort of distances offshore you can't discharge plastic or litter into the sea you'll know that

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but obviously this topic isn't yet covered by any formal legislation in terms of a pollutant

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so what from your perspective do you see as being the clear steps forward for the industry and the

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legislature around dealing with this opportunity I appreciate that's a massive question but where

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do you feel is the most obvious place to start well I think first of all we have to acknowledge that

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GRP is a hazardous material and I had a discussion with some specialists in the environmental agency

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and we all agree that that's the first step you know and they they actually gave me a really nice

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example and they said that you know the catalytic convector in cars that one contains heavy metals

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and some asbestos and so on so that is considered hazardous and that's one of the reasons why

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why you can't abandon your car on the road and the government had put into place this massive

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well I suspect it happens in a lot of countries this scheme where you can take your car to the

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recycling and you get 200 pounds but the main reason is that parts of the car are considered

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hazardous and so you will expose yourself and the others to a sort of contamination well this

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is something that has to be acknowledged for the GRP as well it is hazardous and years ago I was

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talking to a colleague in the United States who again he got a grant from the government to get

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abandoned boats smash them to pieces mix them with cement and use them to make pavements or roads

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because nobody wanted to go into buildings again it was an untarget territory so they didn't want

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to put that cement into buildings that they thought yeah roads and pavements are okay but then

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because of my research they actually stopped that scheme because by smashing that the GRP they

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created so much dust and so much contamination that would go freely into the water that it was

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saving something to actually destroy something else so they stopped that so it's that idea of

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having the GRP declared hazardous and then none of the boats can go to the landfill anymore because

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that's yet another problem you know that we all say that by I don't know 2050 is it the last

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governmental pledge that we're going to reduce our input to landfill to 60% or something if you take

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three boats over there you go over the limit and declare the material hazardous and then that's going

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to fuel the research into recycling fuel the research into what to do with the material so we

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compared it to landfills so we have to do something about it and that's going to start a bigger

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conversation. Do you think having the legislation lead on this topic in particular is going to

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provide the most profound paradigm shift effectively in the way that we manage this material? Yes

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definitely. I make a comparison here with cars and with petrol as well you know it was only until

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we realised that the air quality is absolutely pulling that the oil reserves are going down as

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well that the entire revolution into you know electric cars and so on started until then it

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there were just discussions. I think it's the same here we have to realise that we have a huge

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contamination of the coastal environment especially and there is absolutely nothing we can do about

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the abandoned boats other than smash them and take them to their landfill but that landfill is limited

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and especially for island countries like ours you know that's going to push the government into

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yes doing something this is a hazardous material it can't be approved to to go to landfill together

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with with all the other rubbish and so something needs to be done. I guess also that does help with

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the formalisation through the more formal routes such as landfill but if I want to scuttle my boats

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when it's too old and unhappy to use anymore I still could without very little repercussion

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unless anyone knew that it was my boat and that's something which certainly in the UK I understand

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within the boating community specifically there is a bit of reluctance to move towards boat

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registration because the big difference between the car industry and owning a car as you rightly

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mentioned versus boats whilst they're very very similar as an analogy it's perfect the difference

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is you know who a car belongs to there's a centralized register because they are as you said

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made up of a variety of materials some of which are incredibly hazardous so we know someone dumps

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a car who effectively it belongs to when you have the same with a boat unless you're obviously a

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customer registered with a marina or a harbor authority or you're on the you know the ship's

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register being over a certain size then we don't have a very a very good control of who owns what

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and where it is I know in Europe we're looking at progressing that kind of route and centralising

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that information because arguably that's actually an incredibly important way in starting to ensure

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that our profession recreation passion pleasure pastime becomes much more ocean minded and arguably

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a lot fairer if we partake in anything that we should be contributing to minimising the

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environmental impact of it and that process ought to arguably be quite transparent yeah no

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absolutely absolutely they they should go hand in hand you know as you said knowing exactly who

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owns the boat will actually ensure that that boat is not going to be abandoned because it is a

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hazardous material and so you knowingly by leaving your boat I don't know whatever you're

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actually if you know impacting the environment but also human health anybody who's enjoying that area

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so yes they should go hand in hand but I know that this is a very sensitive topic you know the

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registration and yes the ownership the whole ownership I don't know what to say about that

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I hear you there almost is nothing to say except that it seems to be a slightly British preserve

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currently looking at other models and having other conversations through Europe that we seem to be

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incredibly reluctant I'm not sure if it's us believing that it's somewhat impeding our freedom

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or part of the kind of nanny state mentality where we're being watched and kind of monitored

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but arguably when we're talking about substances which you pointed out are asbestos like and at

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the moment it's very ad lib as to what to do with them all at the end of life and otherwise it seems

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like the most common sense objective practical approach to solving this as an opportunity as

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much as it's an issue I think what's really exciting I know that it's difficult at times to

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have this conversation because of how potent it is and frankly as you said it is pretty disturbing

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but I think that's obviously important part of the process in terms of making change if we don't

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know about something then we can't make those changes or indeed find solutions or innovations

381
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but I have to say there are some incredibly positive forward thinking processes and initiatives

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already underway we're looking you and I are talking expressly around the end of life opportunity

383
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which remains one but we know certainly France in particular is leading on initiatives with

384
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newly built boats for a couple of years now as you're aware there's been conversations with

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governments around if I produce a product or basically any kind of thing that could be a

386
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pollutant I'm therefore responsible for looking after it when it comes to end of life so this

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product producer responsibility is still being formulated specifically for people who create

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things like plastic bottles once their end of life it's my responsibility as a producer to take

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them back again and do something about it and the French seem to be taking this on board and putting

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it into action quite significantly through their initiative which you'll be able to explain better

391
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than I probably can around new boats right if you can afford to buy a new boat then you are

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subject to an eco tax effectively which helps to improve the circularity of that boat coming back

393
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to the producer when it's or at least paying for the disposal of it at end of life is that right

394
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yes that's absolutely right and it's a tax that you pay per square meter when you buy an absolutely

395
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new boat and that is going to be transferred for the life of the boat and that tax is going to

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ultimately collect into a big pot of money that is going to go towards the recycling of that boat

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in any way shape or form that might be I don't know 20 years time that it's a small change that

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hopefully is going to make a big difference I know that in the first year when they run this scheme

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I think they managed to collect the money for recycling about 4 000 boats out of 100 000

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that's a drop in the ocean but you know it's a start said I'm a little bit skeptical that

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until people realise that there is a threat a possible threat you know life and death or

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cancer the steps are not going to be too big you know I can understand that and I can only thank

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you wholeheartedly for actually just doing the research because I think that is always the

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fundamental linchpin of starting any major conversations making any major change otherwise

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it's hearsay and intuition and even how correct they may be in themselves having the data and the

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research as you have done and are doing provides such a solid foundation for us to have more

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meaningful conversations across the industry as sailors and different communities and otherwise

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so whilst I appreciate that currently it may seem that solutions are limited we can do a lot of

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things when we put our minds to it and like you said sometimes unfortunately it takes a shock

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it takes us to realise the impact the significant impact on our own human health before we make

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that change but Corina I do believe and see by everything that you're doing that this is a

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fundamental time and a pivotal moment in our industry to start taking this very seriously

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also from a legislation perspective thank you I hope so as I said I'm just an ecotoxicologist

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I didn't know anything about the both and I'm suddenly I know a lot about the both I think it's

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the only way that it could happen because you're incredibly objective in it you're looking at it

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purely from the science perspective and when you hear an accomplished doctor say that they're just

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an ecotoxicologist I mean my goodness what a clever clever brain you are really that's an

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understatement Corina your one final takeaway for the marine industry and also for sailors

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what would it be in summary we should start with this idea that there should be a stewardship for

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the material but because we have this legacy we shouldn't necessarily moan about where we should

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actually do something about it it would be a good idea for the industry and the boat owners to get a

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little bit more involved with the environment to think a little bit more about the environment and to

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have more connection and keep up to date with the latest discoveries and the latest research and to

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understand very very well what's happening under the water just because it's not a plastic bag that

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is floating on the water doesn't mean that the water is actually clean and the sediment is clean so

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a little bit more involvement and the boating industry is quite powerful and it's quite a

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vitreous well so helping with the research would be a really good point a good brownie point for

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the industry actually. So really connecting science with the industry itself yes the huge opportunity

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if we don't understand something then we have limited capacity or drive desire to help protect it.

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Yes I was really touched by the way you started this conversation by saying that you and a lot of

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your friends and your community you think that you're a green community because you say it's so

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much more than that it's so much much more than that it would be a good point to have a little

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bit more interaction and I understand that it's absolutely important for us as scientists to open

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up a little bit more until many years ago we were just you know stuck in our ways yes this is the

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research yes we publish it on journals that only my colleague in not even a new Sheffield would read

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or something like that and but now we understand that actually we need to translate our research so

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that it has enough to show that it has an applicability and it's important for everyday life not

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necessarily for only a scientific journal. It's a very very potent point particularly on issues

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such as this doesn't fit with any one party and what I was kind of alluding to when you're saying

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that it's frustrating and a bit disheartening not to know what the solutions are you almost don't

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need to find them you do the research bit you show what's actually happening and what it really looks

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like and it's for all of you know a whole plethora of other brilliant brains in different industries

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project managers innovators inventors whatever else to help bring that about because obviously the

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marine industry but certainly boat building is a myriad of roles and skills so it really has to

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be such a collective effort to make such a sustainable long lasting and profound change

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but Karina just to say I'm unsettled in a positive sense and then feeling incredibly motivated by

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our conversation the sort of image of these sort of sea snails impaled with our microfiber

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fiberglass particles doesn't sit comfortably and actually nor should it because it's clear that our

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industry has a massive opportunity and as you rightly pointed out our marine industry is affluent

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you know it's leisure sailing and boating is a real luxury for most so we are a demographic

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largely globally of people who are relatively well educated who have a degree of disposable

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income who appreciates in-depth the pleasure that time on the water brings to us and therefore

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we should be certainly naturally placed ambassadors for helping to protect it and again really grateful

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for the research that you're doing and for sharing it and spending this time with me to

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hopefully bring it to an increasingly wider audience and making increasingly larger change.

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Dr Karina Chakhan principal lecturer in eco toxicology marine biology at the University

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of Brighton thank you very much for your time thank you so much

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you've been listening to the Clean Sailors podcast all relevant links to the projects

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and people we talk to can be found with the podcast link for all episodes or to get in touch

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just visit clean sailors dot com we love to hear from you we believe that great ideas should be

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shared which is why our podcast is free to appear on so if you've got a project idea or topic you

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think we should be discussing get in touch in the meantime thank you for listening and see you for the

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next episode you