First massive ocean clean-up set for 2016

The world’s first system to clean up plastic pollution from the world’s oceans could be deployed as early as 2016. It would become the longest floating structure in world history.

Boyan Slat, founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, made the announcement last month at Asia’s largest technology conference, Seoul Digital Forum, in South Korea. The feasibility of deploying it off the coast of Tsushima, an island located in the waters between Japan and South Korea, is now being researched.

Plastic pollution is a serious problem in the case of Tsushima Island, where approximately one cubic metre of pollution per person is washed up each year. The Japanese local government is evaluating whether the plastic captured could be used as an alternative energy source.

The system planned for the Tsushima clean-up will span 2 kilometres and remain in operation for at least two years. It is designed to catch plastic pollution before it even reaches the island’s shores by deploying long floating barriers that passively concentrate the plastic itself using the natural movement of the ocean currents. All of the current flows underneath the barriers, taking with it all the marine life and preventing by-catch, while the lighter-than-water plastic collects in front of the floating barriers.

According to Slat, the Tsushima deployment will allow the team to study the system’s efficiency and durability over time. But it is only a first step towards the company’s stated goal of cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between Hawaii and California.

A feasibility study conducted by The Ocean Cleanup indicates that it would be possible to deploy a 100-kilometre-long single clean-up array for 10 years to passively remove 42 per cent – approximately 70,320,000 kilograms – of the plastic pollution in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

 

Photo credit: The Ocean Cleanup

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