From urinal mats to unicorns, cargo from major container spill is still washing up on B.C. shores
CBC
When Jill Laviolette started picking debris off Cape Palmerston beach on Vancouver Island following the container spill from the MV Zim Kingston freighter, the inflatable dinosaur and unicorn toys she pulled from the sand looked nearly pristine.
More than a year later, consumer goods from some of the ship's 109 lost containers still wash up on British Columbia shores, the inflatable toys now torn to pieces by the elements to be picked up alongside vacuum cleaner parts, bike helmets, coolers and urinal mats.
"Grey urinal mats, they haunt our dreams. We found thousands of them on our initial cleanup and we're like, 'We hope we never see these again','' Laviolette said.
"We're still finding them. They're going to be the bane of our existence for many, many years to come.''
Even as the debris continues to wash ashore, people involved in the massive cleanup fear a repeat of the disaster, with Canada ill-prepared to deal with such large-scale cargo spills. They hope a recent parliamentary committee report into the incident will spur change, but solutions aren't yet in place.
The Greek-owned ship was hit by high seas on Oct. 21 last year, sending dozens of containers packed with cargo from Asia tumbling overboard into Juan de Fuca Strait off the southern tip of Vancouver Island.
It became a multi-faceted environmental disaster when a toxic fire erupted on the ship, taking several days to extinguish.
Laviolette, co-founder of the environmental group Epic Exeo, was among the early volunteers to hit the beaches as an array of flotsam began to wash up.
She said the magnitude of what she saw in the early days of the cleanup "shook me to my core.''
"It was horrific. Just seeing fridges on the beach, and Styrofoam broken apart absolutely everywhere, and plastic everywhere,'' she said.
Only four of the containers that went overboard have been recovered.
A recent House of Commons standing committee report on the incident warns of ongoing risks.
"The federal government, provinces and coastal communities are currently not operationally prepared to effectively manage marine cargo container spills,'' the report published in October concludes.
It made 29 recommendations for improvements.