The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit organization founded by Boyan Slat, has been a global leader in the fight against plastic pollution. In 2015, the organization installed three Interceptors in the river systems of the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, and Malaysia. They are currently working on a fourth, for the Mekong River in Vietnam. They have ambitious goals and are looking forward to putting them in 1,000 rivers by 2025.
The Ocean Cleanup hopes to deploy 10 to 15 of these systems in the future. In the meantime, the company plans to deploy a prototype Jenny in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The system will collect up to 22,000 to 33,000 pounds of waste per week, and it will be outfitted with an underwater camera to protect marine life. In the future, the company plans to use the technology to launch a full-scale cleaning system. Need to know more? Find it out here. https://oceanblueproject.org/ocean-blue-volunteers/
The system is powered by two Maersk vessels, and has a 520-meter-wide horseshoe catchment system. The vessel has an in-built underwater camera, and the Ocean Cleanup hopes to deploy 10 to 15 of them in the future. Once these machines have been fully deployed, they will be able to recover 15,000 to 20,000 tonnes of plastic every year. In the process, they will save hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.
The Ocean Cleanup's mission is to create a world-wide movement to prevent plastic pollution from reaching our oceans. The organization aims to clean up more than 20,000 square kilometers of water and eliminate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The group will then work with corporations to create products using recycled materials. They will also work with brands on new products that are made from recovered plastic. The company plans to rely heavily on funding to expand its fleet of cleaning systems.
The goal of the Ocean Cleanup is to clean five gyres. However, there is a challenge in capturing plastic waste in the open ocean. It is impossible to collect all the floating plastic in one area, and the plastic is disintegrating into tiny pieces as it floats in the water column. And even if they manage to trap the plastic, it will still slip through the booms. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to eradicate the plastic problem.
To tackle the problem of plastic pollution, there are many ways to do it. By 2020, the World Economic Forum predicts that more than two million tons of plastic will have reached our oceans. With such numbers, it is imperative to find ways to reduce plastic waste before it becomes too large to be cleaned. Besides, reducing plastic waste is essential for the health of our ocean. By promoting sustainable practices, we are contributing to our planet's sustainability.
The Ocean Cleanup team hopes to deploy a fleet of underwater drones to eliminate the biggest portions of plastic waste. It has spent millions of dollars in the past few years, and has hoped to get funding from the World Bank to build their own drones. A new device called "Jenny" is expected to capture up to a thousand tons of plastic a week. The device will also have the capability to clean up about 50 percent of the world's oceans by 2023.
Slat's ocean-cleaning device has changed from its first prototype, a 330-foot-long pipe that was attached to a floating boat. The newest version is U-shaped and more flexible. Each week, the crew hauls up a net, collecting the plastic that has accumulated on the ship. When the trash is collected on shore, the plastic is recycled. The company hopes to partner with consumer brands to produce $200 pairs of sunglasses with the plastic from these ocean waste patches.
The Ocean Cleanup's prototype, the Jenny, is a floating garbage-collecting device that aims to reduce the size of the garbage patch by fifty percent. The system, which is a giant robot that works in the ocean, will collect plastic debris from a large number of sources. The system is capable of catching as much as 30 tons of plastic per week. The goal is to deploy enough cleaners to make the Great Pacific Garbage Patch at least 50% smaller every five years.