““The Great Pacific Garbage Patch can now be cleaned,” announced Dutch
entrepreneur Boyan Slat, the wonderkid inventor who’s spent a decade
inventing systems for waterborne litter collection.
Recent tests on his Ocean Cleanup rig called System 002, invented to
tackle the 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic pollution, were a success,
leading Slat to predict that most of the oceanic garbage patches could
be removed by 2040.
Intersections of ocean currents have created the massive floating
islands of plastic trash—five slow-moving whirlpools that pull litter
from thousands of miles away into a single radius.
The largest one sits between California and Hawaii, and
27-year-old Slat has been designing and testing his systems out there,
launching from San Francisco since 2013.
GNN has reported on his original design for the floating device,
but his engineering team improved upon it. System 002, nicknamed
“Jenny,” successfully netted 9,000 kilograms, or around 20,000 pounds in
its first trial.
It’s carbon-neutral, able to capture microplastics as small as 1
millimeter in diameter, and was designed to pose absolutely no threat to
wildlife thanks to its wide capture area, slow motion, alerts, and
camera monitors that allow operators to spy any overly-curious marine
life…
Slat estimates
ten Jennies could clean half the garbage patch in five years, and if 10
Jennies were deployed to the five major ocean gyres, then 90% of all
floating plastic could be removed by 2040.” -via Good News Network, 10/19/21
