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Last month, the Ocean Cleanup Foundation launched the world's first ocean cleaning system in San Francisco to tackle the famous "Great Pacific Garbage Patch", a massive pile of garbage floating between San Francisco and Hawaii, two times bigger than Texas. It is the largest of the five oceanic waste piles on Earth.
The pipe is expected to arrive Tuesday to the ocean and begin the cleanup process soon after, according to a spokeswoman for the company.
The pipe, which has the shape of a U, features a net 3 meters deep under it to trap floating plastic under the surface of the water. A boat will return to the scene every two or three months to remove debris – such as a garbage truck for the ocean – and bring them back to shore. The goal is to recycle plastic and create new products.
"This plastic will still be there in a year – in ten years," said Boyan Slat, founder and CEO of Ocean Cleanup. "There will probably be another 100 years there, so really if we are going to clean it, that amount of plastic will go down. "
The trash accumulates in the middle of the U-shaped pipe until a trash can come and pick it up. The device has satellite pods that communicate with the company's headquarters in the Netherlands and other boats to share its location. It is controlled remotely and has two cameras located in the center.
The group hopes that the pipe will collect 50 tonnes of waste by April 2019 and will eliminate 90% of global ocean plastic by 2040.
But some experts wonder if such a system can have a real impact on such great oceans. He has also been criticized for his inability to capture small debris and the possibility of marine life being trapped inside. Some critics also worry about whether the device could fail, that it's a malfunction or storms, and create even more ocean waste.
Eben Schwartz, head of the marine debris program at the California Coastal Commission, said his main concern was the percentage of floating plastic that could be collected in this way, which is too small to make a difference. He thinks that focusing on waste reduction with earth-based efforts will be more effective.
"It's much more cost-effective and prevention-preventing waste from entering the premises," Schwartz said.
Schwartz added that his group of volunteers for cleaning the water and beaches had picked up 7 to 10 times more waste than Ocean Cleanup wanted to capture by the spring of 2019.
"We did it in three hours and for a fraction of the cost of the Ocean Cleanup project."
Although Mr. Schwartz stated that the cleaning of the oceans is important, he thought that the focus on the project could hinder other efforts to reduce waste.
"If it gives people the impression that they do not have to worry about recycling because it's there, it's a serious negative consequence," he said. declared.
The need to clean our oceans holds the attention beyond this project. Last week, President Donald Trump signed the Save Our Seas Act, which aims to help clean up ocean waste by extending its own five-year ocean clean-up initiative, the Marine Debris Program.
This may not be the only effort, but Slat thinks his pipe will make all the difference.
"At the time, people were saying," Well, there is no way to clean that up. The best thing we can do is not to make matters worse, "said Slat." But for me, it's an uninteresting message. Everyone wants the future to be better than the present, and that's what we hope to achieve. "
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