The ship will be launched in 2020 and will host the most cutting-edge equipment for researching plastic in the sea. The project was realised in partnership with WWF.
Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke announced on 2 May that he will finance the construction of a ship conceived for the purpose of carrying out state-of-the-art oceanographic research. The vessel will then be made available to the scientific community, with the aim of identifying and monitoring the presence of plastic in the seas.
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Røkke, with a fortune of almost two billion dollars, is considered the second wealthiest man in Norway: "I want to give back – he explained – most of what I have earned. This ship is just one piece of my project," the billionaire told the newspaper Aftenposten. It is indeed a "turning point" for the entrepreneur, who built his fortune on the fishing business and, above all, on hydrocarbons.
The ship donated to scientists will be 181 metres long: it will accommodate 30 crew members and 60 researchers on board. It will be built in collaboration with WWF and is expected to be launched during 2020 (the cost of the project has not, however, been specified). Thanks to the latest-generation equipment that will be installed on board, it will make research into the presence of microplastics in the seas far easier: "A problem for which it has never been more urgent to find a solution – said Nina Jensen, secretary general of WWF Norway –. The vessel will enable an enormous leap forward in oceanographic research."
The issue of plastic in the oceans, which is having an increasingly dramatic impact on ecosystems and marine wildlife, has become even more topical following the publication of a study in the scientific journal Science Advances, in which the presence of these pollutants was confirmed for the first time in the Arctic Ocean as well.
The analysis highlights in particular how, for the other oceans – the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian – detailed studies have already been published on the presence of microplastics, but that only now has it been detected also, specifically, in the waters bordering Greenland and in the Barents Sea off North Cape. The quantities are still marginal compared to those found, for example, in the Mediterranean, but are no less worrying for that.
Researchers have in fact explained that there could be as many as 1,200 tonnes of plastic in the Arctic Ocean. And, above all, the impact of the phenomenon on the seabed remains entirely unknown: researchers have so far only been able to verify the problem on the sea's surface, but it is almost certain that some of the debris has sunk or become trapped in the ice cap.