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A 2,000 foot-long floating pipe connected to an enormous net arrived Tuesday at its Pacific Ocean destination to begin cleaning up garbage.
Dutch environmental start-up Ocean Cleanup Foundation launched last month, CNN reports. The Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest of five giant oceanic trash piles, is located between California and Hawaii.
The U-shaped pipe is connected to a 3-meter-deep net to help trap litter. It is also remote controlled, according to CNN, and equipped with GPS-enabled receivers and satellite receivers to communicate with nearby boats.
Ocean Cleanup reportedly hopes to recycle a garbage hauling boat.
Earlier this month, Ocean Cleanup conducted a final series of trials to ensure that the system could be implemented in the Pacific Ocean and adapted to changing water and wind currents.
"The coming months will give System 001 plenty of opportunities to prove itself and we are hopeful that it will continue to pass the tests," the company said in a statement.
Read more: Dutch Inventor to Launch Ocean Plastic Cleanup
Founded by inventor Boyan Slat in 2013, Ocean Cleanup hopes its unconventional apparatus will be the most-needed solution to the spiraling ocean trash crisis. An estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic waste finds its way into our oceans every year, and that burden is expected to grow.
Ocean Cleanup has just made it to the size of the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch just five years, and remove 90% of the plastic in the world's oceans by 2040. An early iteration of its system was featured on TIME's Best Inventions of 2015 list.
But others have criticized Ocean Cleanup's approach as well as other effective efforts, such as volunteer beach clean-ups, and warned that it could accidentally ensnare sea life.
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