A 14-Foot Shark Built from Cape Cod's Marine Debris

Shotgun shells, tampon applicators, lighters, straws and bottle caps turn up again and again on beach cleanups, and at Cape Cod National Seashore all of that debris now forms a 14-foot white shark. The sculpture, installed at the Herring Cove Bathhouse in spring 2023, is made entirely of marine debris that volunteers collected from the Seashore's beaches.

What counts as marine debris

NOAA defines marine debris as any persistent solid material that is manufactured or processed and is, directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, disposed of or abandoned in the marine environment or the Great Lakes. Items range from single-use plastics to fishing gear, and the debris pollutes natural areas across the globe, including the waters of the Seashore. There are three ways to respond: remove and document what is there, spread awareness, and focus on prevention.

Building the shark

With support from the NOAA Marine Debris Program, the Seashore worked with the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) and the debris artist Cindy Pease Roe, who was chosen from a competitive pool of artists. She chose the white shark because it is a significant Cape Cod species, and she designed it to show the effects of marine debris as well. The work went in stages:

1. The design was drawn to scale and transferred onto wood.
2. A metal armature was welded to give the sculpture its base.
3. The armature was wrapped in rope collected from the Seashore's beaches.
4. Pieces of marine debris were attached to form the shark, in layers that tell the story of the debris and of the species it affects in this protected place.
5. With help from a wooden boat builder, the whole sculpture was coated in a two-part epoxy system and a heavy-duty automotive U.V. protector to withstand the weather.

The volunteers and their counts

The debris came from the CCS Beach Brigade, a volunteer group of more than 350 members that carried out 27 beach cleanups in the year before the article. After each haul, volunteers do a "trash tally": the debris is sorted, counted and documented. Counting afterwards lets them concentrate on collecting as much as possible during the cleanup and gives more accurate data later. CCS says good data can change behavior, inform policy and make people more aware, and the cleanup data have supported single-use plastic regulations across the Cape, including bylaws on water bottles, balloons, straws and take-out containers.

From February 2022 to February 2023, Brigade volunteers gave 1,540 hours to beach cleanups and 643 hours to trash tallies. They are a mix of Cape Cod residents and visitors. CCS's marine debris program director, who came to the issue through work in the lobster industry and whale research, now works with fishing industries in Maine and Massachusetts to remove abandoned, lost and discarded gear. CCS still focuses its data on fishing gear, to find ways to prevent that debris, but it now records everything from balloons to tampon applicators.

Cleanups show the past and the future in the same haul. One between Wellfleet and Truro turned up a glass bottle 210 years old together with 200 feet of plastic-coated electrical wire.

What the display is for

The people behind the project do not want visitors to be swayed only by the sculpture's beauty. They want them to look closer, see the individual items as things they use every day, and think about changing their own habits: for example, how many produce stickers wash up, and whether that would change how someone handles fruit and vegetables. Plastic left in the open does not disappear; it shreds into microplastics. A Park Service staff member who joined the sorting and counting said it made a global problem personal, because of how much smoking litter and how many balloons there were.

What visitors can do

At the display, visitors are asked to think about how they have met these impacts and what they can do. The Seashore asks them to share photos of the sculpture and their own actions with the hashtag #MarineDebrisBites, look out for nearby beach cleanups, recycle where they can and choose reusable products over single-use ones.

Sources

• National Park Service, Cape Cod National Seashore, "Marine Debris Bites: Finding Artful Opportunities to Bring Awareness to Issues in the Marine Environment," written by Kristin Vinduska, NPS (https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/marine-debris-bites-finding-artful-opportunities-to-bring-awareness-to-issues-in-the-marine-environment.htm); photographs of the sculpture, its artist and the volunteers left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.