A Porthtowan photographer is joining renowned scientists and artists in an expedition along the coast of Alaska to study the impact of a giant floating mass of plastic the size of Mexico.
Andy Hughes, who is a lecturer in photography at Truro College, was invited to join the crew collecting and studying waste after publishing his work 'Dominant Wave Theory' - photographic images of rubbish washed up on shores in Britain and America.
Next week he will be departing from Seward, in Alaska onboard the research vessel, Norseman for a ten day sail along the remote coasts of Kodiak Island and the upper Aleutian islands.
Debris from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami is now finding it way to the islands.
Alaska's shores are the northern fringe of the North Pacific Gyre, which is associated with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a swirling vortex that traps rubbish and debris washed into the oceans.
Mr Hughes was the only artist outside the USA to be invited to photograph the journey which will feature in the National Geographic and exhibition at the Anchorage Museum.
His work will then form part of a tour across America by the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Centre to highlight the issue.
Mr Hughes, who is a long-time supporter of St Agnes based campaign group, Surfers Against Sewage, said he was thrilled to be joining the scientists and other artists.
He said: "We will be hugging the coast and spending days on the beach collecting samples and doing our own work. We have been invited to spend a day in a national park watching brown bears in the wild.
"There is evidence that land-based animals are now eating the rubbish piling up on parts of the remote islands. I'm hoping the exhibition will get people thinking about our rubbish and where it ends up."
