from the have-you-tried-not-putting-it-in-in-the-first-place dept.
Ocean Cleanup Device Shows It Can Remove Plastic From the Pacific:
It's been nearly a decade since Boyan Slat announced at age 18 that he had a plan to rid the world's oceans of plastic.
Slat, now 27, is a Dutch inventor and the founder of the Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit that aims to remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.
That goal has often seemed unattainable. The Ocean Cleanup launched its first attempt at a plastic-catching device in 2018, but the prototype broke in the water. A newer model, released in 2019, did a better job of collecting plastic, but the organization estimated that it would need hundreds of those devices to clean the world's oceans.
Scientists and engineers began to question whether the group could deliver on the tens of millions of dollars it had acquired in funding.
But over the summer, the organization pinned its hopes on a new device, which it nicknamed Jenny. The installation is essentially an artificial floating coastline that catches plastic in its fold like a giant arm, then funnels the garbage into a woven funnel-shaped net. Two vessels tow it through the water at about 1.5 knots (slower than normal walking speed), and the ocean current pushes floating garbage toward the giant net.
In early August, the team launched Jenny in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a trash-filled vortex between Hawaii and California. The garbage patch is the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world, encompassing more than 1.8 trillion pieces, according to the Ocean Cleanup's estimates.
Last week, Jenny faced its final test as the organization sought to determine whether it could bring large amounts of plastic to shore without breaking or malfunctioning. The Ocean Cleanup said the device hauled 9,000 kilograms, or nearly 20,000 pounds, of trash out of the Pacific Ocean — proof that the garbage patch could eventually be cleaned up.
"Holy mother of god," Slat tweeted that afternoon, adding, "It all worked!!!"
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @01:39PM (1 child)
Free dolphin meat.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 23 2021, @12:25AM
On porpoise?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @01:41PM (4 children)
... of the plastic, those filthy Asian countries.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 22 2021, @03:19PM (3 children)
Orly?
https://abetterfootprint.com/does-the-us-dump-garbage-in-the-ocean/ [abetterfootprint.com]
I have no doubt that China dumps a lot of trash in the ocean. I question whether they dump more than the US.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday October 23 2021, @07:01AM (2 children)
3kg each and every day, for every adult?
Doesn't pass the sniff test.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 23 2021, @07:35AM (1 child)
Perhaps not as individuals. Have you accounted for industrial waste, and flat out illegal dumping? Then there's all that unintentional runoff. An ephemeral stream crosses my property. A heavy rain flushes all sorts of trash from my property, and deposits new trash from upstream. Unless someone is actively collecting that stuff somewhere downstream, it all washes out into the Gulf of Mexico, eventually.
I can't quantify the trash and litter that flows into the oceans. Take the numbers offered with a grain of salt. It's at least a starting point.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 24 2021, @01:12AM
Industrial waste is a likely contributor, but illegal dumping and littering can't increase the amount of garbage produced, only redirect it, so that number still remains highly suspect.
Illegal dumping is still a big problem that needs to be fixed*. There was a scandal a few years ago where Canada's largest recycler was caught dumping in the oceans. Not only were they diverting garbage from landfill** to do it, but they had embezzled millions in federal grants that were supposed to be for recycling technology development.
*I favour jail time for executives and complicit politicians, but I'm kind of a one trick pony.
**Landfill isn't great, but it is less bad than ocean dumping and is much easier to clean up after the fact.
(Score: 2) by Ingar on Friday October 22 2021, @02:52PM (9 children)
That's 9 tons. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is estimated to contain more than 3 million tons of plastic.
333,332 hauls left
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @03:15PM (5 children)
Make the tow vessels solar powered (once on site) so they can cruise around indefinitely. Then make them autonomous, so no one needs to be out there for all the boring slow speed collecting.
And then make a bunch more of them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Friday October 22 2021, @03:24PM (1 child)
They have a crapton of plastic to get rid of. Why not use solar concentrators to destructively distill it? Most plastics cook down into light enough hydrocarbons cleaner than bunker fuel that can burn in a diesel engine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 24 2021, @01:48AM
It is usually better to put heavy infrastructure on shore. The less equipment you have on the boat/barge the cheaper it is to operate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @03:34PM (2 children)
Burn the plastic to power the tug. Burn everything, bring the system down!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @06:40PM (1 child)
Seems to be the theme for COP26. No, not kidding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 23 2021, @12:45AM
What the hell is that? Sounds like a billionaires' get-together hosted in the Seychelles by Ivanka and Junior. Burn that shit down.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday October 22 2021, @05:45PM (2 children)
Actually it's far worse than that. It's estimated that 8 million tons of new plastic enter the ocean *every year*
At 9 tons in a week they'd need 17,000 of these things operating non-stop just to keep the problem from getting worse.
Plus, it looks like they're mostly just cleaning up the big chunks, which are actually only a small fraction of the total plastic in a garbage patch, most of which has broken down into a slurry that still has terrible ecological consequences. So really, keeping the problem from getting worse is the most it can hope for.
I mean, kudos for doing *something* I guess - that's more than I've done on the problem. But nobody has ever doubted that you can pull trash out of the ocean, only whether it can be done cost-effectively. And if you need one of these for every three ships in the world, just to hold the line? That doesn't sound super cost-effective to me. Though, hey, a lot better than anything that came before, so at least things are improving. I definitely don't want to piss on technological progress just because it's still only taking the first steps on a long journey. It just still looks like the only realistic solution is to eliminate plastic waste, rather than trying to clean it up after the fact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 24 2021, @01:52AM (1 child)
In fairness this is just their first working prototype. Once they are operational they can start improving the design. Reigning in dumping is its own issue and needs to be addressed independently, but cleanup needs to happen either way.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday October 24 2021, @03:20AM
You do have to start somewhere, it's true. I don't now that it's worth trying to deploy at scale at this stage, but it is worth continuing to work on, and may even be worth deploying for particular problem spots. Clean up the currents just before they blight the local beaches, that sort of thing. Seems like river cleanup projects have been gaining momentum in that regard. Nothing in the face of the whole problem, but it's *something*, and does help fund the further improvement of the technology.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday October 22 2021, @03:20PM (3 children)
I'm deeply skeptical of the honesty or feasibility of this project.
The density of items in the misleading-named GPGP is around 3 items per square meter and the vast majority of those items are smaller than 1 cm^2 that wouldn't be caught in this system.
I hope I'm wrong, but I feel like they are collecting this much closer to shore than their PR would lead you to believe. Getting trash out of the ocean is a very good thing, but I'll be pissed on principle if they are lying.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @03:36PM
Ding ding! Dude sounds like a Musky self-promoting douchebag. Oh My! My idea was Greater than even I Could Have Imagined. Follow Me on Twitter to Get My Latest Updates.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 24 2021, @02:13AM (1 child)
If they were operating closer to shore then they would either be collecting even less material or their technology is better than it sounds, because any collection system will always be most effective where the garbage is densest, either directly at the mouth of a major river (where they would be seen) or at the heart of the GPGP, which can be verified by tracking the tugs' transponders. Scammers also don't like the kind of public scrutiny he's inviting. They always have some pseudo-scientific 'secret sauce' miracle technology or new-age magnetic meditation crystal. There is nothing magical or unexplained about using nets to catch garbage out of the water, only the usual engineering hurdles to mature the technology and make it cost effective.
A project like this can't really be profitable no matter what you do since most plastic isn't recyclable, and the rest is marginal at best, so he needs public support to attract donations and government grants to keep it going. Twitter is a cheap and effective way of getting and keeping that public support.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:20AM
Per chance, have you stumbled across the names of the boats? I did want to check the AIS records for them, but the are notably absent from their website, twitter feed, etc. Did I just miss them?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @10:32PM (4 children)
Most plastic is bouncy neutral meaning there is a column of plastic to clean at many sizes ranging from micro to macro.
Otherwise, you are just skimming the surface of some big chunks.
Also, the plastic is not clean, it is mixed with biomass from algae and critters.
So will be very heavy to get into any land processing station, stink like shit and require a lot more energy and fresh water to recycle than it is worth.
Also, what is the energy needed to clean just 1 patch?
Are we going to burn a lot of fossil fuel to get the job done?
Also, the scale is obviously still a big issue that is only getting bigger moving into the future.
Like a Red Queen Race.
"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."
Good Luck with that.
Maybe focus on replacing plastics with something that can degrade back into the environment without toxins or giving Men tits? (Phthalates mimicking estrogen)
Just a suggestion.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @11:35PM
Sure, but I'm a lot more worried about the minority of plastic that is bouncy evil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 24 2021, @02:48AM
At the speed this thing moves at wind power is highly attractive, and unmanned vessels can support very long deployment times. Windmill ships aren't exactly cheap to build but should be cheap enough to operate. Once the nets are proven to work then they would be a logical upgrade. Sail ships for back-haul is another option, since waste isn't exactly a time sensitive cargo. One collector obviously isn't nearly enough, but if you can build one you can build hundreds, and mass production should reduce cost-per-unit as well.
Most plastic isn't recyclable and what gets dumped is often picked over first. Even if it wasn't, sorting fragments is also highly unlikely to be viable. Sun drying before shipping back to shore would both reduce weight and odour, but the end game is likely using it as fuel. Dry biomass burns so cleaning isn't an issue for that use case. Not a great outcome, but better than leaving all that plastic in the ocean.
Even if we stopped dumping plastic in the ocean today it would still take at least 500 years for what is there to break down, and that is probably optimistic. I fully agree that we need sustainable alternatives, but cleanup is still needed.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday October 24 2021, @04:03AM (1 child)
Recycling isn't really an option after that much sun exposure anyway. Realistically, the options for disposing of all but the highest-quality current-gen plastics are
1) landfill, where it becomes some future person's problem, but at least isn't leaving an ongoing chain of ecological damage in its wake until then.
2) incineration. A well designed an incinerator can burn plastic and dried biomass almost as cleanly as any other fuel, and you can harvest the energy - I think I've heard Germany actually produces a lot of it's electricity through waste incineration, importing trash for recycling and incineration from many of its neighbors.
Eventually something like the newer acid-recyclable monomer plastics may catch on and change things, but for now the whole idea of plastic recycling has always been a greenwashing scam by petrochemical companies. Technically it can be done, but you lose quality with every go-round, and even at the highest quality levels it only just barely makes financial sense to do so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 24 2021, @08:41PM
I don't know about Germany, but Sweden has such a program. It isn't great, but it works out to being the most economical and least polluting solution in the near term. Reducing plastic use, especially single use plastics, makes the biggest difference but actually recyclable plastics would be a big help as well.
Reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover. Apply in that order. But for some reason recycling is the only one that gets any attention, even at the expense of the other three.