The Ocean Cleanup

1. They argue the majority of the waste is small particles, and they refer to it as a 'plastic soup'. Are these particles not just larger plastic debris that has decomposed? Wouldn't keeping up with the larger debris help prevent the 'plastic soup' in the first place?

2. Second point, they say the project is too big of a challenge but believe it might work on a smaller scale. I don't think this is a situation where you should think small.

3. Thirdly, they say this will be in the way for boats, and wildlife. The site addresses most of the wildlife concerns because there's nothing to capture wildlife, and it's basically a floating wall. The wildlife can swim under it, or away from it. I'm sure some jellyfish would be floating into it, but it seems like a big improvement over nets. Also, it says their large scale operational test will be 10km wide. That's not exactly disrupting the shipping lanes in the middle of the ocean.

4. Their last points are awful. They say the plastic waste can't be recycled, so it's worthless to pick up, and they close with saying 'cleaning the oceans will never be a solution', and we should instead just reduce the use of plastic.

In short, I have no idea if this thing will work, but watching the videos, it seems like a decent solution that's worth exploring. They seem motivated, and a couple of million dollars isn't much to invest on such a project and team.

patrickaljord• 12 years ago

rue89 is a far left French news site so it isn't surprising that their solution is anti-consumerism and their skepticism directed at a private initiative is also not surprising as they tend to favor initiatives that come from the State only.

leorocky• 12 years ago

There's a lengthy, point by point response to criticism on this page:

http://www.theoceancleanup.com/blog/show/item/responding-to-...

I am not qualified to judge the merits of the criticism or the response, I'm just kind of happy someone is at least trying to do something about trash in the ocean.

Yardlink• 12 years ago

I didn't see mentioned. Why do it? It might save some species? That needs to be something they're sure of and sure they can't be saved more cheaply other ways.

wfunction4• 12 years ago

If they could only make the email address optional, then I'd consider... there really is no good reason whatsoever to require an email address here for someone who isn't asking for a reward.

drewfrank• 12 years ago

That strikes me as a pretty extreme reaction. If it's an issue you care about and you think it's a viable approach, you'd really withhold your contribution on the basis of a required email address?

andrewflnr• 12 years ago

It smells bad. If I'm not explicitly asking them to send me stuff, what are they going to do with it except send me stuff I didn't ask for, AKA spam. This particular project may well be an exception, but on today's internet that's a healthy reflex.

wfunction4• 12 years ago

Because it wouldn't be the first time I'd have been bitten by making donations to organizations that kept begging for money through the contact information provided.

I have no idea if they plan to do this, but I suspect they might (otherwise why would they require an email address?) and the onus on them to prove they don't intend to do that. Claiming you want to do something good doesn't automatically win everyone's trust.

dueprocess3• 12 years ago

Sorry, I upvoted you by accident. Can you clarify why requiring an email address is a showstopper for you?

aw3c2• 12 years ago

Privacy.

wfunction4• 12 years ago

Yes, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7926256

sergiotapia• 12 years ago

I agree but you can use a mailinator account and be done with it.

vadvi• 12 years ago

Use a fake email address.

spyder• 12 years ago

Yea, let's not support cleaning up the oceans because it requires and e-mail address.

wbhart• 12 years ago

I'm skeptical. Most of the plastics in his/her photos are visible. In the actual gyres, most plastics are microplastics, i.e. particles from cosmetics and clothes washing that have gone down the drain. There's a pinkie fingernail sized piece every couple of cubic metres or so. Definitely not visible. They also harbour life. How to remove the life and give it somewhere to live without upsetting the ecosystem?

Panoramix• 12 years ago

Do you have a reference for the main sources of microplastics? My understanding is that they are the result of larger chunks of plastic that just decompose in the oceans. By removing large plastic items we'd make a strong leap forward.

nraynaud• 12 years ago

sometimes they are also directly shipment of small plastic pellets in their production form (ie, before being molded into a toy).

yread• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics

It's even in toothpastes!

acjohnson55• 12 years ago

That's assuming most of the macroscopic stuff hasn't already broken down by well before it reaches the gyre.

namenotrequired5• 12 years ago

Most of the plastics in his/her photos are visible.

It's hard to show invisible things in photos :) Or artist's impressions for that matter.

I volunteered on one of their research trips on a gyre and can tell you that, while you're right that most plastic is invisible from more than a few meters away, there's still a lot of visible plastic as well.

goshx• 12 years ago

The plastic killing those birds look very visible to me.

nothiggs• 12 years ago

I don't know enough about the subject to have the pretence to judge whether it can work, what I do know is that: 1. It seems the naysayers are doing nothing to try and change the situation, but then again, history books aren't populated with names of critics... 2. A partial solution is better than no solution. It doesn't solve the problem of microscopic plastic parts ? So what ? It also doesn't solve world hunger and global warming, but having more people with the attitude and vision of this young entrepreneur just might.

devcpp• 12 years ago

It seems the naysayers are doing nothing to try and change the situation

You can thank the naysayers for serious research, otherwise people would just come up with stupid abstract ideas since no one would be skeptical or pessimistic.

I agree with your second point, but I also think we shouldn't rush for a temporary solution that would give people a feeling of "we have at least done something about this, now let's stop worrying about it". Startup culture shouldn't apply to public- or crowd-funded solutions.

hershel• 12 years ago

Great project. I do wonder , why are 100 people involved ? is it very complicated ? or just the fact they volunteer so they can't give their 100% attention to this?

namenotrequired5• 12 years ago

The short answer is, both. There's a smaller core team that works more or less full time on this, and a lot of other part time volunteers. Personally, I volunteered temporarily on one of their research trips only (I'm unsure if I'm counted in the "over 100 volunteers" figure, though).

Edit: I forgot to respond to the second part. It is also very complicated - it has already required a lot of research that hasn't been done before, and a lot of angles need to be considered, not just in various fields of physics and chemistry but also biology, economics and law to mention a few.

userbinator• 12 years ago

Since the majority of plastics are produced from petroleum, I wonder when it may become viable to mine the plastics that have ended up in landfill and the oceans - most of them are thermoplastics like polyethylene, which can be easily remelted and recycled.

Luyt• 12 years ago

There's a skeptoid episode about the Pacific Garbage Patch: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4132

"In 1988, Robert Day, David Shaw, and Steven Ignell submitted a report to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) detailing the results of four years of sample collection and analysis of plastic fragments found floating in the Pacific Ocean. They found concentrations highest in the North Pacific Gyre. The authors cited wind and currents as the primary force driving the higher concentrations to the center of the Gyre. Concentrations of what? Number one, monofilament fishing line fragments; and number two, something called neuston plastic. Neuston plastic refers to particles that have been broken down to a small size and are now floating just at or below the surface of the water. Most plastic floating in the open ocean degrades quite quickly, due primarily to ultraviolet radiation. It becomes brittle and crumbles. When it reaches microscopic size, it competes with phytoplankton as a food source for zooplankton, and enters the food chain. That's not good for anyone. The authors used 203 sample stations, each about 450 square meters in size. 52.2% of these contained plastic fragments.

Got that? Only half of NOAA's football-field sized sample areas, in the center of the densest part of the Pacific "Garbage Patch", contain even detectable levels of microscopic plastic. Unacceptable to be sure; but hardly a solid island."

gregschlom• 12 years ago

For precision's sake, 450 square meters is nowhere near the size of a football field, be it American Football or Association Football). Both have at least 5000 square meters.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_field

rdam• 12 years ago

No one ever said it was a "solid island of plastic" except some uninformed members of the public. You're taking an urban legend to criticize a valid concern. That is like saying hackers can be stopped by banning ski masks because everyone knows a hacker is someone in a ski mask.

Retric• 12 years ago

First off 1988 is 26 years ago.

Second, 450 square meters is about 1/9th of an acre or a little under 5,000 square feet which is not actually that big. Also, you don't really get uniformity with floating debris it's a mix of high and low concentrations the real issue is what the average concentration because you could double the amount of debris and still have large gaps. More to the point they are sampling that area not fully straining 450 square meters.

PS: Not that I think this is an important issue, just trying to be clear.

MichaelTieso• 12 years ago

It kills me when I say title tags on the front page as Home. I shared this one Facebook and it comes up as Home as the title: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2kw9fie59eg6m2w/Screenshot%202014-...

jpalomaki• 12 years ago

Good idea. Is this a scam? Does not look like that. Can this be harmful? Probably not at least in this scale. Ok, here's my money. Test this and let me know if it worked.

In general it is good to be sceptical, but sometimes it can also prevent good things from happening. I think it is better to just throw them some money (or ignore this) than spend time trying to find reasons why this would not work. It's not like we would need to pick either this solution or something else. We can try this, and that and five other ideas and see which one works best.

namenotrequired5• 12 years ago

As one of over 100 volunteers for this project, I can say with confidence it's not a scam, but a passionate team trying a crazy but by now well-researched idea.

Totally agreed - it's not a full solution, but definitely one worth trying.

wfunction4• 12 years ago

I had a question in case you might happen to know -- why does the site require email addresses?

jstsch• 12 years ago

Fully agree, this is a serious problem and this seems to be one of the few potential solutions with lots of energy going into it, so let's give it a shot. They did quite a bit of research and they've gone way further than just 'concepts' or artist impressions.

dcarmo• 12 years ago

Is there anyway to buy their The Feasibility Study book? I'd love to help them and get one copy.

namenotrequired5• 12 years ago

There's only two physical copies of it right now, while they're extending the peer review. The only way (as far as I can see) to get a physical copy is to pledge at least $750 (see the crowdfunding page).

a_johnson• 12 years ago

worth trying...

esbonsa• 12 years ago

We already started cleaning the oceans, of their fishes that is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/03/t...

wavesounds• 12 years ago

As someone who has routinely ridden a bike along the rivers of Los Angeles I can tell you there is nothing being done to stop the flow of trash from streets, through storm drains, to rivers straight into the ocean. Targeting rivers like these in major population areas seems like the cheapest, easiest, most effective first step to stopping this problem.

jcr• 12 years ago

One thing worth mentioning is the recent MIT work that can turn non-recycleable plastics back into crude oil.

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/pk-clean-solving-worlds-plast...

The Ocean Cleanup

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