There’s a new machine coming to clean up the biggest chunk of ocean plastic. The world’s first machine of its kind is heading to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is halfway between California and Hawaii, and that’s where it’ll start collecting the 1.8-trillion pieces of plastic trash floating in the water.
The Ocean Cleanup (the name of the Dutch nonprofit behind the project) will launch from San Francisco Bay in the next few weeks and will start working by July. The system uses a combination of enormous floating nets held in place by huge tubes, which are ironically made of plastic, to suck waste out of the ocean.
The project aims to install 60 giant floating scoops, which each stretch a mile from end to end. Fish will be able to escape and boats will come by every six to eight weeks to collect the trash and bring it to land to be recycled.
Source: New York Post
PS: The Ocean Cleanup was created by Dutch teenager, Boyan Slat who dropped out of of college to create. He raised 2.2 million thanks to crowdfunding with other millions coming in via donations.