An ocean-sweeping system designed to collect plastic waste from the world’s oceans says its tests gave been successful, and it is ready to be deployed on the big project of attacking the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area three times the size of France.
Ocean Cleanup, led by Dutch ‘eco-entrepreneur’ Boyan Slat, uses two giant arms pulled by a ship to sweep up waste. In the test, the system collected 28,659 kilos of waste in nine trials. Among the detritus collected were toilet seats, toothbrushes, laundry baskets, shoes, crates, sleds and fishing gear.
The Great Pacific patch is estimated to hold over 1,800 billion pieces of plastic and other waste. It’s the largest, but not the only floating dump; there are four others with an estimated accumulation of more than 80 million kilos.
