The Ocean Cleanup launched a 2,000-foot-long self-contained system last year, and the team behind it are now praising the system’s major success in picking up plastic, including microplastics as small as 1mm in diameter, in the world’s oceans’ largest plastic accumulation zone: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
System 001/B, introduced by The Ocean Cleanup CEO Boyan Slat, uses the “natural forces of the ocean” to passively collect plastic.
“After beginning this journey seven years ago,” says Slat, “this first year of testing in the unforgivable environment of the high seas strongly indicates that our vision is attainable and that the beginning of our mission to rid the ocean of plastic garbage, which has accumulated for decades, is within our sights.”
The Ocean Cleanup team is now working on System 002, expected to be an improved relaunch of all the learnings from the trial, with the aim of returning the collected plastic to land where it would then be recycled.
