The massive boom is hoping to sweep plastic waste from the Pacific Ocean

Engineers flew Sept. 8 to deploy a garbage collection device to protect plastic waste floating between California and Hawaii to clean up the world's largest waste zone in the heart of the ocean Peaceful. The 2000-foot-long floating dam was towed from San Francisco to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a trash island twice as big as Texas.

The system was created by The Ocean Cleanup. "The plastic is really persistent and it does not go away on its own and the moment to act is now," says Boyan Slat, founder of the organization, adding that the researchers at his organization have discovered that plastic is coming back in the 1960s and 1970s. the patch.

The U-shaped floating barrier, made of plastic and equipped with a 10-foot-deep conical screen, is designed to act as a shoreline, trapping some of the 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic that scientists believe swirl in this gyre. swim safely below.

Equipped with solar lamps, cameras, sensors and satellite antennas, the cleaning system will communicate its position at any time, allowing a support vessel to fish the plastic collected every few months and transport it to dry land. where it will be recycled. Slat Shipping containers filled with fishing nets, plastic bottles, laundry baskets and other plastic scrap picked up by the system deployed on Saturday should be put back on shore a year from now. -he adds.

Floating barriers

Slat said that he and his team would ensure that the system works efficiently and withstands harsh ocean conditions, including huge waves. He said he was looking forward to a plastic-laden ship coming back to the port. "We have yet to prove the technology … which will then allow us to evolve a fleet of systems," he said.

The Ocean Cleanup, which raised $ 35 million in donations to fund the project, will deploy 60 floating barriers in the Pacific Ocean by 2020. "One of our goals is to eliminate 50% of the garbage from the Grand Pacific in five years. "Slat said.

Floating barriers are designed to withstand bad weather and constant wear. They will stay in the water for two decades and collect 90% of the waste in the patch, he added.

George Leonard, chief scientist of the Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, said Slat could achieve this because even though plastic waste could be removed from the ocean, many things were pouring in every year. "At Ocean Conservancy, we are very skeptical, but we hope it will work," he said. "The ocean needs all possible help."

Leonard said that 9 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the ocean each year and that a solution must include a multi-pronged approach, including preventing plastic from reaching the ocean and improving education for consumers reduce their consumption of disposable plastic containers and bottles.

"If you do not stop plastics from flowing into the ocean, it will be a Sisyphean task," said Leonard, citing the Greek myth of a never-ending task. He added that on September 15, about one million volunteers around the world will collect garbage from beaches and waterways as part of the Ocean Conservancy's annual ocean cleaning program. Last year, volunteers collected around 10,000 tonnes of plastics worldwide in two hours, he added. Leonard also raised concerns that the net and marine fauna could become entangled below the surface. He said he hopes the Slat group is transparent with its data and shares information with the public about what is happening with the first deployment.