Skim Possible is Cleaning up Vancouver Waters!
Hi there! My name is Skim Possible and I’m a Seabin—one of three installed to eat up pollution in False Creek. I live in the water just underneath the docks at the Public Market on Granville Island, amidst schools of fish, otters, cormorants, seagulls, pigeons, and seals.
I chow down on your plastic trash, removing it from the water so that it can’t show up uninvited in the ocean where it can degrade into microplastics that harm ecosystems and wildlife. Sometimes, the menu can be a little more… shall we say… ‘organic.’ The dock I call home is also a catchment area for ocean debris, like surface scum, feathers, and vegetation.
That said, most of my meals consist of garbage. The garbage I eat comes from what you leave behind at the market: tons of food waste, cigarette butts, takeout containers, single-use cutlery, and plastic water bottles.
Lost items like hats, toys, cups with painful puns, and (shudder) condoms also give me a lot to chew on.
While much of my disgusting dinner is delivered via litter, some terrible tidbits come from things people flush down the toilet through combined sewer overflows (I’m looking at you, condoms and syringes).
Other debris, like plastic pellets called nurdles used in manufacturing, are more of a mystery. Are they dropped off by industrial boat traffic? Plastic manufacturing? The Nurdle Fairy? Beats me. But they’re pretty gosh darn indigestible, both for me and the animals that may eat them by mistake.
The Peter Wall Coastal Protection Initiative is making it possible for me and my two partners to take a really big bite out of pollution in False Creek. They're even planning to add nine team members to our fantastic roster over the next few years!
By supporting the Vancouver Plastic Cleanup, the Peter Wall Coastal Protection Initiative is helping our team clean up the dirty underworld of our waterways! Not only that, but as part of the operation, they are supporting citizen science projects, improving sewage and waste-water infrastructure, and boosting coastal water protections in and around Vancouver.
In a perfect world, I would go hungry—there would be no plastic entering False Creek, my beloved home and your local waters for boating, kayaking, sailing, and more.
Skim Possible is fighting the real-life supervillains of Vancouver! Polluters beware, Skim is cleaning up the evildoers promising worldwide chaos with her ragtag team all-around Granville Island. Skim protects the peace at the Granville Island Public dock 24/7, the group's trusty steed Seabinscuit hard at work at the Maritime Market Marina and the muscle of the group, Seabin Segal holding it down in Sea Village! Her favourite colour is orange and she attributes her figure to her steady diet of cigarette butts and scum! The team keeps regular progress reports every month, so be sure to check back in for a chance to hear from Skim or the rest of the team!