Every year, about 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean and about 80% of all pollution in the oceans is plastic. This is harmful not only to marine life but to ourselves. A couple of years ago we discovered microplastics in our bodies, but a couple of weeks ago we detected microplastics in human blood which could lead to various health problems.
The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing technologies that will “rid the oceans of plastic.”
How does it work?
There are two operations that the organization created: oceans and rivers. The ocean operation utilizes a long U-shaped barrier that was developed in order to imitate a coastline where plastic can accumulate. This barrier is dragged by two ships in open water where plastic is captured and moved to a retention zone. This operation uses the active propulsion, or forward motion, of the two ships to allow the plastic to move from the net into the retention zone. Once it is full, the retention zone is detached from the barrier and pulled aboard the ship where it is emptied. Next, the plastic onboard is separated into categories so that it can be recycled when they return to land. The retention zone is then attached back to the barrier and sent out into the water so that more plastic could be collected. The Ocean Cleanup utilizes a computational model that predicts the hotspots of plastic concentration in the oceans. Typically, plastics end up in ocean currents that circulate and concentrate vast pollution in certain areas.
The operation created for the river cleanup is similar but has more options. One of the options is using the Interceptor Barrier and the Interceptor Tender. The barrier is a U-shaped net that sits at the mouth of a small river and it collects the plastic that flows into it. The interceptor tender is what removes the plastic from the plastic net and offloads it onshore. These two technologies complement one another and prevent plastic from entering the oceans via rivers. The other option is to use the Interceptor Original, which is an autonomous raft that has a large cleaning capacity. The Ocean Cleanup has deployed these technologies in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Dominican Republic, and Vietnam to help clean up the rivers and prevent ocean pollution.
Are there difficulties?
This effort to clean up the oceans has faced some difficulties since the organization was first founded in 2013. One of them has been a technological design issue. The retention zone design allows for some of the plastic to float out of it and back into the ocean. Furthermore, in 2019, a part of the ocean barrier used to catch plastic broke and had to be sent to Hawaii for repairs. There are critics of the organization that argue that this solution is only addressing the problem at the end stage and that it is not doing enough to prevent plastic consumption, which would decrease the amount of plastic pollution.
What has The Ocean Cleanup accomplished?
They have removed 24 football fields worth of pollution from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area between California and Hawaii, and have successfully funded 500,000 football fields of pollution to be removed.
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