Back in August, the Ocean Cleanup Project returned to the waters of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with a redesigned trash-collecting system that was its largest yet. This upsized approach appears to be paying some dividends, with System 002's final phase of testing hailed a success and marked by a "massive" haul of plastic waste.
The Ocean Cleanup Project first popped up back in 2013 with grand plans to clean plastic from the oceans using massive floating barriers, and the system has undergone a number of reinventions since.
The System 002, nicknamed Jenny, that was launched in August marked a significant departure from previous iterations, as it ditched a passive design in favor of active propulsion. This meant rather than relying on floating system that moved with the wind and the motion in the ocean, the horseshoe-shaped Jenny would be towed along by crewed vessels at either end.
The idea was to move Jenny through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch at a steady speed of 1.5 knots, funneling plastic waste into a retention zone at the far end. With a length of 800 meters (2,640 ft), Jenny is also the biggest system deployed by the Ocean Cleanup Project, and its first large-scale system.
After towing Jenny out to the patch in mid-August, the Ocean Cleanup team kicked off a trial regime involving more than 70 separate tests to see if it is up to the job. The most recent of these took the form of a "full duration" test, designed to completely fill up Jenny's barriers over the course of six weeks. This final test of the system was completed over the weekend, and to great success, according to the team.
"It all worked!!! Massive load. We’ll try to get the footage to land ASAP to share," tweeted Ocean Cleanup CEO Boyan Slat.
The team is still processing its catch so we can expect more information to be forthcoming on how much Jenny is capable of cleaning, but one thing is clear it will take many Jennies to put a dent in the issue. Millions of metric tons of plastic waste wash into the ocean each year, and many have doubts about the capacity of trash-catching barriers to tackle the problem, and whether these efforts might do more harm than good.
For its part, the Ocean Cleanup crew is well aware of this, and is simultaneously endeavoring to prevent plastic waste entering the ocean through a river-based collection system called "The Interceptor." It still sees the accumulated waste in the ocean as a major problem that needs solving, as the longer it remains swirling about in the seas the more of it breaks down into problematic microplastics that are difficult to track and pose all sorts of problems to the environment.
You can check out some raw footage of the team's latest catch in the video below.
Source: The Ocean Cleanup
This looks great but it’s taken six weeks to collect what we’re still putting back into the ocean probably every second of every day, right? Kinda like blowing out a match half an hour after you lit it.
I understand that we need to remove what’s already in the seas but if we’re pouring in millions of metric tonnes every year at the moment, surely this amazing, talented group should be solely concentrating on their river project? Once that is solved, then clean up the seas.
In forty plus years of combing Southeast Alaska beaches I never saw flotsam so clean of growth.
Before cleaning up we need to ban all plastics that can be replaced by cleaner recyclable/reusable non plastic materials. That in and of itself will contribute to the reduction of all forms of pollution.
There is no mention of the carbon foot print/pollution this effort is creating.
So other than collecting the catch, repair, mothership caring for say 10-30 catchers, no real need for people to be stuck rolling back and forth endlessly is no fun. BTDT
And coastal catchers can just bring it back to port.
I do agree that is very clean flotsam. As an ocean sailor, maintainer of things that float for 35 yrs, in 4 months those should be covered in shellfish, barnacles, algae on any part under water .
No you do both at the same time. And that holds true for the plastic cleanup as well. Which is in fact what they are already doing. They've had their Interceptors working in major rivers for a few years now. They did this after making a massive survey of plastic point sources and prioritizing the placement of Interceptors on the some of the highest offenders, where they could get permission to operate.
"Way too costly."
They're doing it all on donations. While they tried to do it passively, they got criticized for that taking too long to have the needed results.
Feel free if you feel like you have the marine and mechanical engineering chops to pull it off, to work for them and submit your designs. This would be much more useful than trying to knock down what they've already studied, designed, built, and operated to good result.