Ben Lecomte is swimming across Pacific to raise awareness against plastic pollution in ocean

Washington, Dec 10: Some people are born to make a difference. Ben Lecomte is one of them. The 51-year-old French swimmer who has set off on a mission to swim across the Pacific Ocean (a distance of 9,000 kilometres in the largest water body in the world) not just to create a world record but also to spread awareness about ocean pollution.

Lecomte set off from Japan's east coast in June and plans to reach San Francisco in a period of six months during which he will raise awareness about plastic contamination and other sorts of oceanic pollution.

The veteran swimmer is picking up plastic pollutants from underneath the ocean and urging people to be more careful when accessing the ocean for the disposals have a fatal impact on the marine lives. The man, who has swum the Atlantic Ocean previously, didn't the expect the plastic problem would be so pervasive. According to a report in nowthisnews.com, Lecomte's team has collected an average of 2.4 micro-plastics per minute for 93 days after starting the journey. It said the big pieces of plastic get broken down further and further into tiny pieces, leaving a massive impact.

"The most obvious thing is to limit or reduce our use of single-use plastics," Lecomte was quoted as saying. "It's not one big problem that happened overnight, it's an accumulation of one bad decision we all made. And not taking care and not looking after the impact that plastic would have."

Lecomte also said the solution also is not something that will happen instantly and people will have to change their habits. He said when one set of people do that, others get inspired and the chain will grow to tackle the problem eventually.