Rozalia’s ship, the American Promise.
In 2011, KRC began an innovative partnership with the Rozalia Project, a high‑performing nonprofit dedicated to water stewardship and research. Kilroy decided to sponsor the Rozalia Project because it makes a significant, positive environmental impact through strategic educational outreach and targeted programs. This innovative partnership further supports sustainability as KRC’s lighting vendor, ReGreen Inc, makes donations to the Rozalia Project based on the amount of energy savings generated from KRC’s lighting retrofit projects.
KRC sponsored two weeks of Rozalia’s 2011 Summer Trash Tour. On this tour, the Rozalia Project conducted both waterway cleanup and educational events aimed at increasing public awareness of water pollution. The KRC-sponsored weeks were the most significant ones since the Project’s founding, having over 400 participants in its programs and picking 1,758 pieces of trash out of the ocean.
At each tour stop, the Rozalia Project conducted debris pick up and education programs for people of all ages dockside and onboard its “mothership,” American Promise. Participants had the opportunity to hunt for and collect trash from the surface to the sea floor using nets and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) equipped with sonar and manipulators to grab the trash. The Rozalia Project also conducted side scan and ROV surveys of each harbor. All debris was recorded and sorted for recycling and safe disposal on land.
Of the trash collected during the KRC-sponsored leg of the Trash Tour, the Rozalia Project took 818 pieces of plastic, much of it microplastic, from the surface of Charles River, inspiring the Rozalia project to develop new research on microplastic in urban waterways.
KRC will sponsor additional weeks of the 2012 tour, and its innovative partnership with ReGreen will allow additional weeks to be funded as well, increasing the reach of the Rozalia Project’s programs.
Click here to learn more about the Rozalia Project.
Founded by Miller and James Lyne in 2010, the Rozalia Project’s mission is to find and remove marine debris from oceans, seas, lakes and rivers through action, technology, outreach and research. Miller and Lyne have spent their lives on the water, from studying marine mammals to racing at the America’s Cup. They have witnessed marine debris, especially plastics, polluting our oceans, lakes and rivers from New Zealand to Maine and everywhere in between. During a vacation on an island 25 miles off the coast of Maine, its coastline covered in marine debris, the two decided to do something about the problem of marine debris. That something was to clean it up and the Rozalia Project was born.
The Project’s founders believe simply that when you see trash, you pick it up and that even the biggest pile is cleanable. And when the trash has such far-reaching, negative effects on humans and sea animals alike, and we have the technology and expertise to pick it up, it is imperative that we do so.
