Thousands of rubber bath toys were released in the North Pacific in a container accident some 30 years ago. They helped provide valuable data for oceanographers. picture alliance/dpa/SymbolbildSome 30 years ago, a container toppled off a ship into the North Pacific. Such an accident in itself isn t .
Thirty years and six days have passed since a container was lost at sea with almost 29,000 rubber toys. It changed oceanography for good. Here's how and why
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William Brangham:
Andy Yoder:
Right. They did.
Right next to Salvatore Ferragamo, you have got Special K cereal, or Veuve Clicquot right next to Hot Wheels. So, it s that juxtaposition, that slamming together of things from high culture, low culture, all those different things kind of bumping up against each other.
William Brangham:
But this is about more than just a chaotic collision of color.
Yoder hopes we can learn something new from the things we cast away, very much like the three-decade-old event that inspired this work. In 1990, the container ship the Hansa Carrier was traveling from Korea to North America when it hit rough water. The storm threw overboard several containers full of roughly 80,000 Nike shoes.