The Ocean Cleanup Has Good News, Hopes To Resume Plastic Cleanup Soon

The Twilight Zone isn't a place you necessarily want to be. Unless maybe it's the final step toward cleaning up tons of plastic pollution in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Boyan Slat, an inventor who began an ambitious ocean cleanup of the patch last year, says the effort may resume as soon as next week due to several successful tests and changes to what's now called System 001/B.

The Ocean Cleanup is essentially a big rake that picks up floating plastic. Only this lawn contains more than 176 million pounds of plastic and is twice the size of Texas.

A System 001 was launched from California in September 2018 with an overall goal of cleaning up half of the patch in five years, with a 90% reduction by 2040. But there were problems with retaining plastic in the system, then it broke apart early this year and was brought to Hawaii for repairs and upgrades.

Slat, founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, says all but one of the known issues with System 001 (aka Wilson) have been resolved. The last hurdle is one called "overtopping," where plastic overtops a screen that's meant to retain it. He says the cleanup crew has just finished production of a new screen that Slat is confident will solve the problem.

"We found one that works," he said earlier this week, ahead of an official blog update.

The screen is essentially a bunch of buoys on a string, similar to a cork line used to divide a swimming pool into lanes. Those buoys keep the screen up and give it buoyancy.

"You don't want plastic to overtop the screen," Slat explains. "The current screen sticks out maybe 4 inches above the water. So it's not hard to imagine a little wave (causing problems)." The new screen will stick out almost 20 inches above the water, using three rows of floats stacked on top of each other.

The Ocean Cleanup can't say this fix is "proven technology" just yet, because more testing is needed. But Slat says the team hopes to retrofit the system and begin cleaning up plastic from the patch as soon as next week. The goal is to have the screen capture and retain the plastic without human aid for months at a time, so the system is autonomous and the plastic only needs to be harvested once in a while.

System 001/B has been out in the patch since June, during which time Slat's team dealt with and solved a speed issue.

"We just needed a consistent speed (to capture and retain plastic)," Slat said. The solution turned out to be a giant parachute anchor, 60 feet in diameter, to create drag, slow down the system and let winds and waves push in the plastic.

Is Slat being too optimistic and putting this information out too soon? Either way, he says the mission will continue.

"When we launched Wilson in September of last year, we aimed to have proven technology working within a year. Technically, we're still within that year."

Even if it takes slightly longer, "We have to take this one step at a time."

Slat says the effort's original goal remains, to remove 50% of the patch in five years, deploying a fleet of additionals systems to do the work.

"I'm clearly never going to give up after all that's happened," he says. "One thing that's clear is why nobody ever attempted this, because it's clearly insane. And it's clearly super difficult. But we don't have much of a choice. This garbage patch is not going anywhere and the problem is getting worse by the day."