"The Ocean Clean Up" will leave for the Pacific

ALAMEDA – It's time to launch The Ocean Cleanup, the ambitious effort to collect the massive plastic vortex drifting in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii.

As a nonprofit of the Netherlands, The Ocean Cleanup will use a float attached to a screen under the water, which, if all goes as planned, will concentrate the debris and allow for their collection and recycling.

Screen bins should contain plastic bottles, bottle caps, pieces of plastic containers – anything that can float or be just below the surface.

The fish will swim under the screen, which drifts about 10 feet below the surface, and it should not get tangled or get stuck because the screen is smooth and not a net.

The cameras monitor the device during the collection of debris, which will be collected every few weeks.

The system will be towed from Alameda, where it was assembled, across the San Francisco Bay and under the Golden Gate Bridge, around 11 am Saturday.

The Dutch company has been working since March at the former Alameda air base to assemble the system, which includes sections 250 feet long.

Expanding over 2,000 feet, it will be the longest ocean structure ever deployed. The company says its goal is to clean up 90% of the plastic accumulated in the world's seas by 2040.

Once in the bin, an anchor will be suspended under the equipment at approximately 2,000 feet, which will make the U-shaped system slower than debris and thus easier to pick up.

Boyan Slat founded the environmental business in 2013, when he was only 18 years old.

The largest waste disposal area in the Pacific Ocean is the largest of the world's five oceans, where currents and tides lead to the concentration of plastic and other materials. Other spots are located between Australia and Africa and off South America.

The launch of the Bay Area will be the first, and it takes place off the so-called Seaplane Lagoon at the former US base.

"Next to the military historical importance of Alameda, it is here that the famous car chase scene of" The Matrix Reloaded "was filmed, and some of the best experiences of my favorite TV show" MythBusters " Slat said in a statement shortly after the company began renting the location in East Bay. "We are honored to be allowed to use this site as the site of the world's first ocean cleaning system. I hope we will also do history here.

Once the plastic concentrate is taken out of the Pacific Ocean, it will be brought back to shore for recycling and sold, with proceeds going to finance cleanup in other ocean areas.

Slat told Bay Area's KTVU station that this first phase of the Pacific clean-up project cost about $ 30 million. Its Dutch company announced in May 2017 to have raised $ 31 million since 2013 to test and launch its technology.

Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce, and Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, are among the donors.