Posted on 09/09/2018 9:40:49 AM PDT by Eddie01
https://www.theoceancleanup.com/system001/
The Ocean Cleanup team claims their 2,000-foot tube will provide the solution to widespread plastic pollution in the world's seas.
A ship departing Los Angeles on Saturday is carrying a giant floating tube which company researchers claim will help to clean plastic pieces spread throughout the ocean, the Guardian reports. The Ocean Cleanup has been in the planning stages for several years and is now testing its technology on the open sea.
The first test launch was made on Saturday with the ship deploying System 001 tubes in the San Francisco Bay. The tubes were set to be in a U-shaped form, the better to contain and retrieve floating plastic garbage. A 9-foot skirt beneath the tubes stops plastic bits from floating away but allows wildlife to travel below.
The efficiency of the Ocean Cleanup system is on track to be detailed after a test run of some 6 weeks, after which a support will rendezvous with the collection vessel to retrieve collected pollutants.
System 001, coordinates: 37.81867° / 122.4421°. Check out our live map via https://t.co/1BtgT9dps7 to track the system's location. pic.twitter.com/sxw3xt1bxL
Ocean Cleanup is currently a small nonprofit organization founded by a Netherland's resident Boyan Slat. At the age of 18, Slat proposed the cleanup the Great Pacific Garbage Patch a floating mass of plastic bits and pieces of garbage said to be twice the size of Texas. If it can swell to a fleet of 60 devices like System 001, Ocean Cleanup says that it could remove at least 50 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in five years, and 90 percent of ocean trash by 2040.
To gather funds the company launched a crowdfunding campaign in 2013, which raised $35 million in donations since that time, according to CNBC. The funds allowed the testing pf 270 models and six prototypes before the creation of System 001.
The Ocean Cleanup attracted the attention of environmental and tech companies, including tech star Elon Musk, who tweeted that he found the idea of System 001 cool.
Looks cool
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 8 сентября 2018 г. Environmental activist group Greenpeace noted that while the idea is laudable, it deals only with consequences and does not address the root cause of the problem: the widespread and thoughtless oceanic pollution practised by mankind.
Prevention is far better than cure and in order to tackle the pollution crisis corporations must stop producing so much plastic, a Greenpeace spokesperson told the Guardian.
I hope it works too! This is not some wild tree huggers scheme. This guy seems to have come up with a possibly legitimate solution to a major pollution problem.
I love how they talk about testing new technology. Its a big net.
I prefer my oceans polluted.
Fish are overrated.
#POLLUTETHEWORLD
Then all the better. That makes it an affordable solution.
I was leaning towards a containment boom that is towed.
I hate it when my giant tube isn't clean.
Sounds good but it seems like these big ideas end up with huge unintended consequences. We may see.
Something has to be wrong with this plan, according to most environmentalists. We don’t have to give something up, and nobody has to die. Are they slipping?
I hope it works but the ocean is an awful big place. Seems like a drop in the bucket idea to me.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
Get China to quit dumping plastic into the Pacific.
If you look at the map at the top of the thread it looks like they are heading to one specific known garbage patch to see if they can make a dent in cleaning it up.
they could save a lot of effort by just placing it off China’s coast were the majority of this stuff originates from open garbage dumps on the beaches.
Dont get me wrong. Im all for a clean environment. Gotta start somewhere I suppose, but theres a lot of ocean out there. Seems like a thankless and never ending job. And whose paying for it?
#POLLUTETHEWORLD
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Then, PAVEITOVER
You are probably right that there is nothing that can be done to clean the plastic pollution from the oceans. Yet, if there were several of those floating booms in the more polluted areas and thousands of tons of plastic were recycled each year at a profit then my vision of unicorns and butterfly sneezes would move from fantasy to reality. Plus it is fun to hope that technology and capitalism could solve a problem. As long as it is not my money, then let them give it a try.
The thing is, most of the plastic in the ocean is being dumped there by China and India. Unless those nations move to clean up their acts, all of the straw banning and plastic bag banning to make our lives a little more annoying won’t make a dimes worth of difference.
and then there was a blow and the sea state kicked up to 40 knots with wave over 30 feet ending the fruitless feel-good ‘experiment’
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