Alex from 4ocean Newsletter: Hurricanes and tires are destroying our reefs!
Published by Alex from 4ocean on September 27th, 2022 1:08pm.
11 views.
Follow 4ocean: Website
You might also like: Alex from 4ocean Coupons & Promotions on Contaya.com
As Hurricane Ian barrels toward Florida and our crews get prepared, I’m reminded of another hurricane—the one that ultimately got us involved in the Osborne Reef Tire Cleanup.
In September 2017, Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida as a category 4 storm with sustained winds of up to 132 mph and crazy storm surges of up to 8 feet.
While we watched huge waves crash over our seawalls and litter our coastlines with debris, there was even more going on below the ocean’s surface.
When the storm was over, our crews got right back out there to help clean our coastlines and, in just a few hours, we recovered over 50 of these old car tires from a two-mile stretch of coast near Boca Raton.
After a full day of cleaning, we all wanted to know where these tires were coming from...
And that’s how we learned about
the Osborne Reef.
A quick recap for the newer members of the clean ocean movement: Osborne Reef is a 1970s project that tried using millions of old car tires to build the world’s longest artificial coral reef.
While it started with great intentions, salt water corroded the restraints that held the tires together and, instead of creating a place where coral could grow, the bottom of the ocean wound up looking like this:
For over 50 years, gnarly storms like hurricanes have turned these tires into wrecking balls and projectiles that rip through our coral reefs and destroy everything in their path.
Every day they’re left in the ocean, they cover more area, damage more coral, and migrate further away from each other which makes them harder to recover.
There are companies that have spent years cleaning up the Osborne Reef and while they’ve made great progress, there are still hundreds of thousands of tires that need to be recovered.
That’s why
the Osborne Reef Tire Cleanup is so urgent.
4ocean has been diving the Osborne Reef to recover these tires since October 2021 and let me tell you, it’s difficult work.
Each 30–50 pound tire has to be wrestled out of the sand, cleared of debris, and strung onto the cable of a lift bag that carries it to the surface. Then they have to be hauled out of the water, freed from the lift bag, cleaned, and transported to the appropriate processing facility.
Our work is a little easier thanks to the gear we’ve received from our friends at Halcyon and Garmin, but this operation is still small and scrappy and we’re going to need your help to grow and get more tires out of the ocean.
Remember,
the Osborne Reef Tire Cleanup is funded through the sale of the Osborne Reef Bracelet which is made with the tires that we have recovered from the bottom of the ocean.
If you’d like to support our dive crew and help protect our coral reefs, order one for yourself (or a friend) today and help spread the stoke!
It’s a tough battle, but just like Tony, our Head of Cleanups over there on the left, we’re ready for the fight!
Purchase an Osborne Reef bracelet and help fund the removal of tires from the bottom of the ocean.
As always, thanks for reading and thanks for being part of the clean ocean movement! We couldn’t do any of this without you.
Yewww!
Alex Schulze
Cofounder & CEO
4ocean.com | @4ocean
4ocean is a purpose-driven Certified B Corp and Public Benefit Corporation on a mission to end the ocean plastic crisis. Our professional, full-time captains and crews recover trash from the world’s oceans, rivers, and coastlines seven days a week. For more information, please visit
4ocean.com.
3600 FAU Blvd, Boca Raton, FL 33431 U.S.