SAN FRANCISCO – As the sun rose on Sunday morning, a sanitation system in the Pacific Ocean was slowly but gradually being put to the service of its daring goal of ridding the oceans of plastic pollution.

Five years after its creation, the Ocean Cleanup is the brainchild of a young Dutchman named Boyan Slat. He saw plastic garbage pollute the waters in Greece when he was diving there in high school and he became obsessed with cleaning.

A vague idea became a plan, and then a project that became a TED talk that found start-up capital funded by the crowd. On Saturday, the 24-year-old had to stand on the bow of a ship and see the fruits of his idea being transported to the Pacific.

The process was neither simple nor easy.

"There were a lot of obstacles, a lot of zigzags," he said in an interview with USA TODAY aboard the boat that followed the system. He started with an idea, based on the arrows used to contain the oil spills, but quickly realized that it would not work.

Hundreds of tests, iterations and models have entered what Ocean Cleanup now calls the 001 system.

Although the idea of ​​a 19-year school dropout with a viable plan to clean up the oceans from plastic pollution might seem absurd, the project's operations director, Lonneke Holierhoek, perceives it differently.

"It was not a crazy idea – it was an ambitious idea. It was a simple and elegant idea. Generally, the best ideas are. And it attracted people who wanted to provide knowledge, support and funds, "she said.

The team is based in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, a marine engineering center. But the prototype was built in San Francisco Bay, partly because it's close to the world's largest ocean waste disposal area, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and because it's also a innovation center.

"We went through cycles: find an idea, build it, test it, improve it, then get a new idea and start over," said Holierhoek. "The results have been extraordinary."

The Ocean Cleanup is a passive system consisting of a 2,000-foot floating ramp made of plastic pipes four feet in diameter. Once deployed, it will turn into a wide U. Below the dams, a 9-foot skirt will encircle the plastic floats of the upper layers of the seas.

Currents and waves push garbage into the center of the system to collect them. Floating particles are captured by the skirt while the thrust of water against the net propels fish and other marine species under and beyond.

A garbage boat will be sent every six to eight weeks to pick up the garbage collected and transport it to shore for recycling.

The system is equipped with solar-powered lamps and anti-collision systems to prevent any stray ship from colliding with it, as well as cameras, sensors and satellites that allow it to communicate with its creators.

"Whales and dolphins can check in, they can be curious, but that will not hurt them," said Ocean Cleanup oceanographer Laurent Lebreton.

It will take approximately five days for the system to be towed to the test area 240 nautical miles offshore. It will be deployed for about two weeks.

If all goes well, it will then be towed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch nearly 1,400 miles off the west coast, roughly halfway between California and Hawaii.

"There have been thousands of previously designed ships, there are rules for that. But we had no rule to follow, because nothing like it was built. So we had to go back to the fundamentals of engineering, "said Arjen Tjallema, one of Ocean Cleanup's navel engineers.

While the 001 system is being towed to its first test site, the team is already working on ideas for number 2.

"It will be different. The question is how different. It depends completely on what will happen now to 001 once it has been deployed, "said Tjallema.

The only thing he is sure of, is that if the 001 system works, 002 will be bigger. "We want to maximize the size to make it as efficient as possible," he said.

The biggest challenge will be how much he survives the winter storms that hit the area and can easily bring waves of 40 feet.

"If we manage to spend the winter in good shape, it will be an important step," Tjallema said.

About 18 people, including engineers, marine biologists, oceanographers and staff, will remain with the system for about seven weeks on the same vessel as the one towing it. Then a new ship will come with a new crew and supplies and they will exchange seats. This will continue until the group is comfortable that the system can work as intended.

The idea is that eventually he will be able to stay alone in the ocean, passively collecting plastic. Plastic garbage will be transported to shore where the plan is to recycle it into sellable items, making the entire process self-sustaining.

For Slat, years of work are the best way to deal with environmental problems that may seem daunting.

Rather than protesting against things we do not agree with, we should build a future with which we agree, he said.

"I hope Ocean Cleanup can be a source of inspiration for others, just to go there. If you do not like something, try to fix it.

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