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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: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @05:32PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @05:32PM (#730828)

    Hm, I was curious about their numbers.

    a 600-meter (almost 2,000-foot) long floater that can collect about five tons of ocean plastic per month.

    ... 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.

    Looks like these guys are the only group that's made an actual estimate of the amount of garbage in the pacific garbage patch. They say there's 80,000 tonnes to clean up. That's actually way less than I expected.

    Anyway, assuming the 80,000 tonne number is real and the vessel performs as well as expected a fleet of 60 ships is about right to achieve their goal. Cool.

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  • (Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday September 06 2018, @10:34AM

    by quietus (6328) on Thursday September 06 2018, @10:34AM (#731234) Journal

    I too was intrigued by the numbers -- as the Garbage Patch is generally portrayed as floating islands of plastic.

    The number of 80,000 tonnes is valid: however, global plastic production per year now stands at 335 million ton [statista.com]. If only 1 percent of that ends in rivers and seas, annually, you're looking at a 3 million ton problem -- as plastic generally floats, the question is where that all ends up.