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posted by chromas on Wednesday September 05 2018, @03:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the garbage-patch-kid dept.

Forbes:

A massive cleanup of plastic in the seas will begin in the Pacific Ocean, by way of Alameda, California. The Ocean Cleanup, an effort that's been five years in the making, plans to launch its beta cleanup system, a 600-meter (almost 2,000-foot) long floater that can collect about five tons of ocean plastic per month.

It's a start. The launch date is September 8, and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch being targeted is more than 1,000 nautical miles from the launch point and on the move.

The Ocean Cleanup plans to monitor the performance of the beta, called System 001, and have an improved fleet of 60 more units skimming the ocean for plastics in about a year a half. The ultimate goal of the project, founded by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat when he was 18, is to clean up 50% of the patch in five years, with a 90% reduction by 2040.

[...] The total cost of System 001 is about 21 million euros ($24.6 million U.S.), according to a rep for startup. That includes design, development, production, assembly and monitoring during the first year of operation.

Once the scale-up is complete and the fleet of 60 is in place, the organization plans to continue operations with help from the proceeds of recycled plastic. Plans are to make products using ocean plastic, so people can support the cleanup that way.

[...] The system takes advantage of natural oceanic forces to catch and concentrate the plastic.

You might liken it to one of those self-directing pool cleaners, on a larger scale. Or a big Roomba cleaning robot.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @05:27PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @05:27PM (#730825)

    A lot of sea food is contaminated with decomposed microscopic plastic particles including the sea salt.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 05 2018, @10:04PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 05 2018, @10:04PM (#730977) Journal

    I betcha we inhale more microscopic plastic particles as dust created by mechanical reduction than we ever ingest.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.