Plastic debris can be found on up to 88% of the ocean’s surface, and most of it is concentrated in the top two meters of water. Swirling currents known as gyres cause the debris to gather in certain areas. Some of these concentrations are so large they can be seen from space.
During an ocean dive in Greece, twenty-year-old Boyan Slat came across more plastic bags than fish. Slat posed a simple question: Why can’t this plastic be cleaned up?
He decided to answer his own question by founding Ocean Cleanup – an organization dedicated to cleaning the world’s oceans – and they designed the Ocean Cleanup Array, the world’s first ocean system targeting plastic pollution.
The Array is a long, floating barrier moored to the seabed that collects plastic debris as it gathers due to ocean currents. The Japanese island Tsushima, whose shores are plagued by plastic debris, has agreed to be the site of the pilot project planned for 2016. There, the 1-mile floating structure will capture the plastic debris before it reaches the island’s shores.
If the pilot project is successful, a series of Ocean Cleanup Arrays will be deployed – increasing in scale. The organization ultimately plans to deploy a 62-mile-long array capable of capturing half the trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an enormous collection of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean that’s at least twice the size of Texas.
Critics argue that preventing the plastic from reaching the oceans is the more sustainable way to end ocean pollution. This may be true, but cleaning up what’s already out there would be a huge win for the environment.
**********
.
Web Links
World’s first ocean system targeting plastic pollution to launch in 2016
Photo, posted February 28, 2010, courtesy of Kevin Krejci via Flickr.
.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.