The Ocean Cleanup Successfully Catches Plastic in Great Pacific Garbage Patch

https://theoceancleanup.com/press/press-releases/the-ocean-cleanup-successfully-catches-plastic-in-great-pacific-garbage-patch/

by itcrowd • 7 years ago

34 6 7 years ago

theoceancleanup.com

Someone3• 7 years ago

There’s no mention of the amount of plastic caught, so I think it’s a safe guess it isn’t spectacularly high.

They also (IMO) somewhat avoid answering a question about it in the video (at 29m30s, “if you do the math, with enough time and enough systems, you can do it”). Or am I too skeptical about this?

rkallos• 7 years ago

I was curious about this too, so I read a few more posts on their website.

The article is about the latest prototype for a device that accumulates plastic for disposal. The idea behind it is to create U-shaped artificial coastlines that slowly glide through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and accumulate plastic for easier collection and disposal. Their first prototype had some defects, but this iteration seems to be off to a better start, and appears to be successfully capturing plastic.

This isn't a large scale operation (yet). It's a promising prototype. I'm excited to read about it, though!

Someone3• 7 years ago

Yes, it is a prototype, but in a press conference like this, one must assume that anything not specifically said doesn’t make the project look good. Because if that, I have serious doubt about that ‘promising’.

That it catches plastic IMO isn’t that surprising; main questions are at what rate and how close they are to having a reliable device that they can leave for years at sea.

I have my doubts about that reliability, too. This prototype set sail about 100 days ago (on June 18; https://theoceancleanup.com/milestones/system001/), and now they show what it captured in “a couple of days”. If they had it working for a month, I would think they said it, so we must assume it only worked for about a week so far.

Part of the difference is moving the device to its location, but they don’t give that data, either.

Perhaps not surprisingly, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ocean_Cleanup#2019 has more info than this press conference:

”In mid-June, after four months of work, the revamped system (001/B)[32] was redeployed.[33] This too failed. In August, the team announced that after trying multiple alternatives, a water-borne parachute attached to slow the boom and expanding the cork line used to hold the screen in place would be tested.[34] In October it became clear that the new system successfully holds plastic, and even microplastics.”

darepublic• 7 years ago

Yea I'm sure they don't have spectacular results yet. Nevertheless I am cheered by this news. I guess it's like when I have code that is working and I know I can complete all the features on time but management is not buying it.

The Ocean Cleanup Successfully Catches Plastic in Great Pacific Garbage Patch

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