Novelty Garfield phones have been washing up on a western French beaches almost every day for 35 years but nobody knew where they came from until a week ago, when a group of volunteers finally unlocked the mystery.
A plastic ‘Garfield’ phone is displayed on the beach in Le Conquet, western France. Image by Fred Tanneau/AFP/Getty
The sarcastic orange cat with a love for lasagne was first introduced to the world in a US comic strip in 1978. From there he spawned countless bestselling books, a television series, films, a musical, clothes and toys, including a range of novelty plastic phones which, for almost as long as Garfield has been around, have been washing up on the beaches of Brittany in western France almost every day.
Locals clearing up litter from the beaches have continuously stumbled across pieces of feline-shaped plastic for the past 35 years, in particular the Finistère region. Discoveries vary from bits of orange plastic or curly wire to the mischievious-eyed, grinning Garfield head of the plastic handset. The phones, which sell up to €40 on eBay, were last year made a symbol of the plastic pollution on the beaches of Finistère by campaigners from the Ar Vilantsou anti-litter group.
For more than 30 years, ‘Garfield’ phones have been washing up on French beaches. Image by Fred Tanneau/AFP/Getty
Where have they been coming from? Nobody was quite sure. It was a mystery that baffled locals for 35 years with plenty of rumours and theories floating around. But then Ar Vilantsou volunteers last week finally cracked the riddle and discovered that the source of these vintage phones was a long-lost shipping container that ran ashore in a sea cave nearby. After a media blitz they were alerted to the source from a local fisherman who first remembered the phones appearing after a storm in 1983. He pointed the volunteers in the direction of the ship – a secluded sea cave in the cliffs at Plouarzel, only accessible only at low tide.
The phones are among the plastic pollution sweeping Brittany’s beaches. Image by Shutterstock
“We found this incredible cave, that was 30 metres deep and right at the end the remains of the container,” the group’s president Claire Simonin-Le Meur told Euronews. “At the cave opening there was a Garfield lodged in the roof, so we knew we weren’t mistaken and this was where they were.”
While the source has been identified it might be a while before Garfield stops making appearances on the shorelines of Brittany as Fabien Boileau, the director of Iroise Natural Marine Park, said there are still parts of the puzzle that need to be solved. “We have no idea what happened at the time, where it came from, what ship it was or if one or several containers fell in the sea,” Boileau said.
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