The biggest Ocean Clean Up ever launched
Hey Ocean Activists!
Emma here! Today I am excited to tell you about the launch of "The Ocean Cleanup". You might have read my previous article about this initiative and how it could help to resolve the issue of the great pacific garbage patch. The system was designed and founded in 2013 by 18-year-old Dutch inventor Boyan Slat. Their mission is to develop "advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic."
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a vortex of trash created from an ocean gyre in the central North Pacific. The trash vortex was discovered in the mid-1980s and lies halfway between Hawaii and California.
Now all the hard work and the ambitious dreams have become a reality as the Ocean Cleanup deployed its $20 million system on September 8th out of San Francisco, CA. It is designed to clean up the 1.8 trillion pieces of trash floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The floating boom system will undergo several weeks of testing before being hauled into action. The floating boom system, with the help of dozens of more booms, is estimated to clean up half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within the first five years. Each boom will trap up to 150,000 pounds of plastic per year as they float along the currents between California and Hawaii.
The floating boom system will be towed out 1,400 miles to the garbage patch around mid-October and begin collecting trash. The floating boom drifts along with the local currents, creating a U-shaped formation. As the boom floats, it collects trash in the U shaped system, which has 10 feet of netting below it to collect smaller fragments of plastic. Once the boom is full, a vessel will meet the boom to collect the plastic and transport it to land for sorting and recycling.
While the organization has ambitious plans and the technology still remains unproven in the open ocean, they are the closest to a solution to cleaning up the garbage patch we have. No other company has a deployable system able to clean up the garbage patch on this scale.
I will DOLPHINETELY continue to monitor and report about the project and wish them all the best luck! Excited to sea it taking on the Garbage Patch in October!
Best of Luck you guys! We TURTALLY support you!
Emma