From Bermuda to the Bahamas and Orkney Islands, on the west coast of Ireland - all over the world, sneakers, sneakers and flip-flops are found on the beaches - new, but covered in seaweed and shells. Where did they come from?
In October 2018, on the Indonesian island of Flores, beach cleaner Guy Ribeiro began noticing shoes on the beach.
At first it appeared occasionally, and one might think that these are just separate lost objects - a small part of the mass of debris that pollutes the world's oceans. But the shoes were nailed regularly, and soon Ribeiro realized that the sneakers, sneakers and slippers that appeared on the beach had something in common.
They were the same brands, sometimes the same model. Some of the sneakers had a tag on the tongue of the same production date. Plus, all the shoes looked brand new.
Within a few months, Ribeiro found about 60 Nike sneakers on the beach and several dozen other sneakers and sneakers from other brands. Rumors began to spread throughout the island.
Seven months later, two thousand kilometers from Flores, in Cornwall, British Tracey Williams also began to notice sports shoes thrown by the sea on the coast. “A friend from Ireland asked me if I had found shoes on the beach,” Williams says. "The next day I went to the beach and found quite a few sneakers there."
“People who clean beaches, or comb them, usually communicate with each other. If something interesting is thrown ashore, this information quickly spreads throughout the community,”she says.
In addition to the Azores and the southeast of England, mysterious shoes have been found in Bermuda, the Bahamas, France, Ireland, the Orkney and Brittany Islands. It is believed that all these shoes are from the same ship.
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“During my research, I came to the conclusion that the boots were probably in one of the 70-76 containers that fell into the sea while being transported on the Maersk Shanghai,” Ribeiro says.
In early spring last year, the Maersk Shanghai, a 324-meter 10,000-container container ship, sailed along the US east coast from Norfolk, Virginia, to Charleston, South Carolina. On the evening of March 3rd, off the coast of South Carolina, the ship was caught in a storm. Due to the rolling and strong wind, several containers with cargo fell overboard.
The makers of the slipper, which has teeth marks on it, confirmed to the BBC that their goods were transported to Maersk Shanghai and were lost. The specialized press then wrote that the missing containers were searched from aircraft - nine were found on the surface, and seven more sank.
It is impossible to say for sure that all the shoes found were once the cargo of Maersk Shanghai. Zodiac Maritime, the operator of the vessel, did not respond to questions from the BBC. Nike also chose not to comment on the container situation.
However, two other shoe makers, Triangle and Great Wolf Lodge, have confirmed that the shoes they made, found on the beaches, are indeed from the same ship.
Ribeiro is not the only beach janitor who believes the footwear he finds is a shipment from Maersk Shanghai. Liam McNamara from County Clare in the west of Ireland has already found over a hundred shoes, mostly Nike sneakers. He is sure that the shoes "absolutely" fell from that very ship.
“One company admitted that it had lost the goods transported on that ship. Another admitted the loss of goods at sea, he says. "These shoes appear all over the world."
Is it dangerous from an environmental point of view?
“Any object, if it sinks or ends up being washed ashore, will have a detrimental effect on marine life,” says Marine Conservation Society ecologist Lauren Isles.
“The process of decomposing shoes into microscopic pieces of plastic takes several years and will have a profound effect on marine life in Britain and around the world.”
Scientists have not yet come to a single estimate of how much plastic enters the oceans of our planet every year. The average estimate is about ten million tons.
Isles does not undertake to estimate what share of this volume falls on the containers that fell from the ships.
“We don't have enough information to draw conclusions,” she says.
The World Shipping Council estimates that around 218 million freight containers are transported around the world every year. Just over a thousand of them fall overboard. However, one oceanographer who helped Nike collect shoes that fell into the ocean in the early 1990s believes the actual figure could be much higher.
“This figure is often challenged in the industry,” says oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeir. “I think there are actually thousands of containers. The question is really what is in them,”he says.
Looking at the situation from this point of view, it becomes easier to assess the damage to the environment, he says.
“The container holds about ten thousand sneakers. For example, if 70 containers fall overboard, each with 10,000 sneakers, then we get a maximum of 700,000 sneakers that float in the ocean,”he says.
Despite the environmental damage, this situation helps to understand how ocean currents work.
A lot of sneakers from the Maersk Shanghai ended up on the beaches. But it floats even more in a circle in the Atlantic Ocean from one oceanic current to another.
By examining where and when sneakers appear, we can get an idea of the speed of these currents.
“If in a little more than a year they make a half circle (from North Carolina to the coast of Britain), then a full circle in the Atlantic will take about three years. This is the approximate circulation period of these sneakers. However, oceanographers have not studied this topic at all,”he says.
What's even more interesting is that the shoe's shape seems to determine its path, says Dr. Ebbesmeir.
“The left and right shoes sail with different orientations in relation to the wind. Therefore, when the wind blows, they float in different directions. Therefore, on some beaches, left-handed shoes are more common, and on others, right-handed ones,”explains the scientist.
The shipping industry has been criticized for damaging the ecology of the oceans, but Dr. Ebbesmeir says shipping companies are beginning to do better now. However, they can do more.
“It takes the ocean 30, 40, 50 years to get rid of these things,” the scientist says.
“Companies that allow the loss of cargo just forget about it, but the items continue to be thrown ashore. How can companies be made to answer for this? There is no responsibility now."
Part of the problem is that carriers are only required to report lost containers if they pose a hazard to other ships or contain substances that are considered “harmful to the marine environment” such as corrosive or toxic chemicals.
The Marine Conservation Society believes that cargo such as running shoes are also hazardous to the ocean, but it is not considered as such under shipping regulations.
A spokesman for the International Maritime Organization, the regulator of shipping at the United Nations, told the BBC that the organization understands "more needs to be done to identify and report lost containers." The organization added that it has adopted a plan of action to combat plastic waste falling overboard around the world.
Tracy Williams goes to clean the beach outside her home in Cornwall several times a day. She does not see an easy solution to this problem.
“No company wants its products to roll on beaches and pollute the oceans. But I think companies should talk more about the loss of cargo. Just raise your hands and admit, “Yes, there was an incident,” she says.
"Things like this happen and will happen, but nobody takes responsibility," adds Liam McNamara. “Ultimately, carriers should be responsible. They are responsible for their own cargo."
