Freeing the world's oceans from plastic waste seems to be more complicated than initially thought. Back in 2012, Boyan Slat, an 18-year-old Dutchman at the time presented his idea of the Ocean Cleanup.Giant tentacles are supposed to float on the surface of the sea and catch the plastic waste. However, the first corresponding tests in recent years were anything but successful. In 2018, for example, it turned out that the prototype that had been built was simply destroyed by the forces of the water. A year later, this problem was fixed, but the amount of collected waste was extremely low. This year, a new design called Jenny has now been tested. This is a funnel-shaped net about eight hundred meters long that is stretched between two ships. During the twelve-week test phase, 30,000 kilograms of plastic waste were collected from the Pacific Ocean.
The collected waste is to be recycled in Canada
However, this is only a drop in the bucket for the time being. The collection campaign took place in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This patch is now twice the size of the US state of Texas and contains more than three million tons of plastic waste. The ocean eddies that exist there also ensure that more and more garbage is sucked in. Moreover, this is not the only problem area in the world's oceans. There are a total of five such ocean eddies worldwide in which plastic waste accumulates. Two of them are in the Atlantic, one in the Indian Ocean and two in the Pacific. For now, however, the Ocean Cleanup Project wants to focus on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The 30,000 kilograms of plastic waste collected there have already been shipped to Canada, where they will be recycled as far as possible. Next year, the initiators also want to use the experience they have gained to present an even larger waste collection system.
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The flow of waste into the oceans must be stopped
At some point in the future, an entire fleet of giant tentacles will travel the world's oceans and collect the waste floating there. But this can only be part of the solution. In principle, it would make much more sense not to let any waste end up in the oceans in the first place. But mankind is still a long way from achieving this goal. Estimates suggest that more than eleven million tons of trash end up in the oceans every year. Moreover, the trend is going in the wrong direction: if everything continues as before, the amount is likely to triple again by 2040. In the meantime, however, the problem has also reached the political agenda. Numerous countries and regions - from Hawaii to Morocco - now prohibits the use of plastic bags. In the European Union, a ban on disposable tableware has also been enacted, among other things.
Via: Ocean Cleanup