- green-spots
- waste
- USA
- Cleaning up plastic waste in the North Pacific
Problems
Great pacific garbage patch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest gyre between Hawaii and California, covers 1.6 million square kilometers, an area twice as big as Texas. It’s estimated to contain 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing almost 90,000 tons. While there are many identifiable floating items in the gyre—macroplastics such as cigarette butts, plastic bags, food containers, laundry baskets, plastic bottles, medical waste, fishing gear, and more—most of the plastic is the size of pepper flakes or smaller, broken down by the sun and waves over the years. Eighty percent of the plastic in the ocean is estimated to come from land-based sources, with the remaining 20 percent coming from boats and other marine sources. These percentages vary by region, however. A 2018 study found that synthetic fishing nets made up nearly half the mass of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch due largely to ocean current dynamics and increased fishing activity in the Pacific Ocean. While many different types of trash enter the ocean, plastics make up most of the marine debris for two reasons. First, plastic’s durability, low cost, and malleability mean it’s being used in more and more consumer and industrial products. Second, plastic goods do not biodegrade but break down into smaller pieces.
Solutions
Cleaning up the great pacific garbage patch
Cleaning up marine debris is not as easy as it sounds. Many microplastics are the same size as small sea animals, so nets that scoop up trash would also catch these creatures. Even if we could design nets that would catch garbage, the size of the oceans makes this job far too time-consuming to consider. The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organization, continues its mission to remove 90% of floating plastic that pollutes the water bodies like in the North Pacific Ocean by developing and scaling artificial coastlines that trap the plastic for easy extraction. Now, they are developing the third phase, called System 003, after their successful System 02 test. The third one has a cleanup system that extends 2,500 meters in total length and introduces a third vessel into the operation. The increase in span means an increase in the rate of plastic captured in the operations. The Ocean Cleanup aims to devise floating systems designed to capture plastics that range from small pieces, as tiny as a fleck of plastic, to large debris, including discarded fishing nets. To achieve such an objective, they are working on closing the sources of plastic pollution and cleaning up what has already been accumulated in the ocean. Active steering and computer modeling help the team target plastic hotspots-areas of higher concentration. However, several ocean plastic experts are also worried that Ocean Cleanup’s system will harm marine life and could kill creatures even if they are returned to the ocean. Ocean Cleanup counters that fish can escape its system. In addition, there are breathing ports for mammals, birds, or turtles that get caught in the retention zone, underwater cameras to ensure that marine life doesn’t get entangled, and a remote-controlled trigger release that opens one end of the retention zone if a creature is trapped. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program has estimated that it would take 67 ships one year to clean up less than one percent of the North Pacific Ocean. While cleanup technologies have a role to play in cleaning up ocean plastic, no single solution can effectively reduce ocean plastic. What is required is a fundamental and systemic change that includes banning single-use plastics in favor of products designed to be recycled or repaired and more recycling infrastructure.
Source: https://theoceancleanup.com/
Gallery
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Timelines
2021
The Ocean Cleanup launched System 002, a larger and more advanced ocean cleanup system, which proves its technology works and continues to harvest more plastic in the patch.
2020
The Ocean Cleanup deploys Interceptor 002 in Malaysia and Interceptor 003 in the Dominican Republic. The organization also publishes a study that reveals how plastic journeys through the ocean.
2019
The Ocean Cleanup launches System 001/B, an improved version of its ocean cleanup system, which successfully catches and holds onto plastic for the first time. The organization also recycles its first plastic catch into products.
2018
September 08
The Ocean Cleanup launched its first cleanup system, System 001, into the North Pacific to trial the technology in its intended environment. The team was able to conduct extensive testing, but after four months offshore, the decision was made to return to port to analyze further the challenges encountered offshore. The learnings from System 001 brought us one step closer to proven technology and laid the foundation for future design iterations.
2016
The Ocean Clean-up team conducted GPS tracker tests in the Netherlands and Myanmar. The testing was done to provide information about plastic flow in the rivers, the so-called ‘hotlines.’ These areas in rivers are where plastic naturally accumulates, e.g., flowlines in the river or static accumulation of waste on the riverbanks. Two types of trackers were tested: a self-built GPS receiver and smartphones. In both the Netherlands and Myanmar, the tests were promising in identifying hotlines, with trackers ending up on waste-rich shorelines.
2015
In 2015, a series of scale model tests of The Ocean Cleanup’s system was performed at world-renowned maritime research institutes Deltares and MARIN. Testing at a reduced scale allows for a high testing frequency at a low cost. The main goal of the campaigns was to determine the loads and dynamics of the cleanup barriers when exposed to waves and currents. Results help to improve the design further, ensuring it will survive and be operable in storm conditions.
2014
The Ocean Cleanup launches a crowdfunding campaign and raises $2.2 million from over 38,000 people in 160 countries.
2013
Slat founds The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organization that aims to develop and deploy technologies to clean up the patch.
2010
Boyan Slat, a 16-year-old Dutch innovator, decides to devote his career to removing plastic from the ocean after going scuba-diving in Greece.
1997
Yachtsman Charles Moore discovers the patch while sailing from Hawaii to California.