By Sophie Christoff
Since July of 2021, more than 61 tons of trash have been removed from the Great Pacific Island Garbage Patch. The Garbage Patch is a collection of fishing nets and other plastic waste. The island of trash is roughly twice the size of Texas and trash collects in this area because of ocean currents.
The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization using innovative technology to clean up ocean trash. The Ocean Cleanup designed a system to clean up the Great Pacific Island Garbage Patch that uses an 800-meter-long C-shaped net. The net is pulled by two boats onto which the trash is hauled and sorted for recycling. The system is safe for sea wildlife because the net is narrow enough to allow fish and other animals to swim below it.
Tests from the original system, 001, were used to design system 002, named “Jenny.” The Ocean Cleanup is simultaneously working on designing system 003 to achieve the goal of cleaning up 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.
Some critics of this technology say that these efforts to remove garbage are a waste of money. Other scientists support the cause, but they feel that ocean clean-up is not the most efficient strategy for decreasing ocean pollution. They reason that netting practices can threaten the survival of plankton. Rivers have larger amounts of microplastics, like water bottles, than oceans. For this reason, The Ocean Cleanup is also using intercept devices to catch plastic pollution in rivers before they enter the ocean.
Unfortunately, only around 9% of what we put in our recycling bins is actually recycled. Some plastics can only be recycled a few times until they become trash.
Robyn Stegman, Senior Manager of Digital Campaigns for the Ocean Conservancy, said, “One of the reasons that plastic is not being recycled is because single-use plastic is so cheap to produce; we need to do more in the country to make oil more expensive to incentivize recycling.”
Around 14 million tons of plastic enters the ocean every year. Will The Ocean Cleanup’s efforts be enough to shrink the Great Pacific Island Garbage Patch? This is yet to be determined.
However, you can decrease the amount of trash you use that ends up in the ocean by reducing the amount of plastic you use versus the amount you recycle. Stegman advocates for the belief that ocean cleanup “is something that you can dedicate your life to, but it is also something you could start today.”
The work of The Ocean Cleanup is the hope that humanity can clean up and prevent plastic pollution.
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