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Boyan Slat Ocean Cleanup: Plastic Soup Collection

by: Associated Press June 24 2019

boyan slat ocean cleanup plastic soup collection | Breaking News

Boyan Slat Ocean Cleanup On Twitter

Boyan Slat, the Ocean Cleanup project creator, announced on Twitter that a 600 meter (2,000ft) long floating boom that broke apart late last year was sent back to the Great Pacific garbage patch this week after four months of repair.

A ship towed the U-shaped barrier from San Francisco to the patch in September to trap the plastic. But during the four months at sea, the boom broke apart under constant waves and wind, and the boom was not retaining the plastic it caught. “Hopefully, nature doesn’t have too many surprises in store for us this time,” Slat tweeted. “Either way, we’re set to learn a lot from this campaign.”

Ocean-CleanUp-Graph-with-boat-and-line

Fitted with solar-powered lights, cameras, sensors, and satellite antennas, the device intends to communicate its position at all times, allowing a support vessel to fish out the collected plastic every few months and transport it to dry land.

Boyan Slat Ocean Cleanup: Restart Plastic Soup Collection
System 001/B - Technological Challenges

Graphic-Ocean-Cleanup-aman-watches-Wilson

The plastic barrier with a tapered three-meter deep (10ft deep) screen is intended to act like a coastline, trapping some of the 1.8tn pieces of plastic that scientists estimate are swirling in the patch while allowing marine life to swim beneath it safely.

What does the ocean clean up do?

A significant percentage of the ocean's plastic drifts into large systems of circulating ocean currents, known as gyres. Once trapped in a gyre, the plastic breaks down into smaller pieces called microplastics – causing tremendous harm to marine life that mistake the particles for food.

Plastic Soup Clean Up Explanation

Trash accumulates in five ocean garbage patches, the largest one impacting our ecosystems, health, and economies. Solving it requires a combination of closing the source and cleaning up what has already accumulated in the ocean.

World-map-with-garbage-patches-and-continents

Boyan Slat Cleanup Oceans Garbage Patches

The ocean is big. Cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch using conventional methods – vessels and nets – would take thousands of years and tens of billions of dollars to complete. Our passive systems are estimated to remove 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage patch in just five years, and at a fraction of the cost.

What is the ocean cleanup made of?

However, most packaging and fishing gear (the two primary sources of ocean plastic) is made of buoyant types of plastic (Polyethylene and Polypropylene), and most life can be found in the top part of the ocean, which is why The Ocean Cleanup focuses on the floating plastic.

Ocean Cleanup: Create A Coastline Where There is None

The challenge of cleaning up the gyres is that plastic pollution is spread across millions of square kilometers and travels in all directions. Our cleanup technology has been designed to do the hard job of concentrating the plastic first before it can be effectively removed from the ocean.

The system consists of a long floater that sits at the water's surface and a skirt that hangs beneath it. The floater provides buoyancy to the entire system, while the skirt prevents debris from escaping underneath and leads it into the retention system, or cod end. A cork line above the skirt prevents overtopping and keeps the skirt afloat.

2-men- and-long-floater-and-skirt-that-hangs-beneath-it

Ocean Cleanup By Using Natural Ocean Forces

For this area, active cleanup methods would be too energy-intensive; this is why we have chosen a passive design. The cleanup systems rely on natural forces to navigate the patches – a feature that also increases its survivability in the harsh ocean environment.

Ocean-Cleanup-system-using-natural-ocean-forces

Both the plastic and system are being carried by the wind, waves, and current. However, to catch plastics, there needs to be a difference in speed between the system and the plastics. Using a sea anchor to slow down the system, plastic can be retained and captured.

How much does it cost to cleanup the ocean?

At a cost of $5,000 to $20,000 per day, it would cost between $122 million and $489 million for one year. That's a lot of money and that's only for boat time. Those figures don't include equipment, disposal or labor costs and keep in mind that not all debris items can be scooped up with a net.

Boyan Slat: ‘Concentrate The Plastic And Take It Out

The combination of natural forces and a sea anchor creates a drag, making the system move consistently slower than the plastic while allowing it to be captured.

Garbage-floating-on-water

The Ocean Clean Up’s Expected Impact

Our floating systems are designed to capture plastics ranging from small pieces just millimeters in size up to large debris, including massive discarded fishing nets (ghost nets), which can be tens of meters wide. Models show that a full-scale cleanup system roll-out could clean 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in just five years. After fleets of systems are deployed into every ocean gyre, combined with source reduction, The Ocean Cleanup projects to be able to remove 90% of ocean plastic by 2040.

How much plastic has been removed from the ocean?

A group of ocean activists removed 80,000 pounds, or 40 tons, of plastic waste from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a massive gyre of floating garbage in the Pacific Ocean. The expedition was led by the nonprofit Ocean Voyages Institute, which was primarily interested in removing discarded fishing nets from the water

The Ocean Cleanup System Is Autonomous

Algorithms help specify the optimal deployment locations, after which the systems roam the gyres autonomously. Real-time telemetry will allow us to monitor the condition, performance, and trajectory of each system.

System 001: Energy Neutral

Our systems fully rely on the ocean's natural forces and do not require an external energy source to catch and concentrate the plastic. All electronics used, such as lights and AIS, are powered by solar energy.

Ocean Cleanup Is Scalable

The modular fleet of systems can be scaled up gradually, allowing us to learn from the field and improve the technology along the way. The more systems deployed, the faster the clean-up will be.

Ocean Cleanup handling Vessel Traffic

No heavily-trafficked shipping routes traverse the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, so the chances of a vessel coming across an ocean cleanup system are minimal. On average, only 5 vessels can be found in an area twice the size of Texas.

Ocean-Cleanup-graph-with-boat-and,waste-collecting-net

But, if a vessel passes through the patch, we will implement extensive measures to ensure both vessels' safety and cleanup systems. Each fleet's future system will be equipped with lanterns, radar reflectors, navigational signals, GPS, and anti-collision beacons.

The AIS will continuously broadcast the systems' location to passing vessels, and the GPS will track the location of our systems, should they veer out of the patch. The US Coast Guard will chart the area as a special operations zone and issue a Notice to Mariners concerning our systems' presence.

The Ocean Cleanup Safeguarding Sealife

Protecting the natural environment is at the heart of what we do. It is the driver behind our efforts to remove large amounts of plastic pollution from the world’s oceans. Hence, safeguarding sea life has been the number one driver behind our technology.

Humpback-whale-under-water

For the 116 days of the first mission, a team of scientists and experts conducted extensive monitoring and observation campaigns to understand any possible environmental impact of System 001 and minimize any potential harm to marine life. Over 1045 hours of visual and acoustic monitoring were performed. During this time, no substantial interference with System 001 and the ocean ecosystem and/or marine life was observed, nor did we observe any entanglement or entrapment of marine animals or protected species.

As we continue to learn more about the technology and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch's natural behaviors, we will maintain a vessel nearby with trained observers to see how the system interacts with the natural environment. While extracting plastic, people will always check for marine life before the plastic is lifted out of the water.

We have also conducted an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for System 001 through an independent agency, CSA Ocean Sciences, which did not identify any major risks of our method to the environment.

How does plastic affect the ocean?

New studies find plastic pollution is so pervasive on many beaches that its affecting their reproduction. Hundreds of thousands of seabirds ingest plastic every year. Plastic ingestion reduces the storage volume of the stomach, causing starvation. Marine mammals ingest, and get tangled up in, plastic.

Ocean Cleanup System: Surviving Storms

Because the cleanup systems are meant to stay in the patch for long periods of time, it is important that our systems can withstand the ocean's forces. The main component of survivability is flexibility. We designed the system to be limber enough to follow the waves, and because the system is free-floating, it can drift when subjected to high current speeds.

Cover photo by Ocean Cleanup

Source The Ocean Cleanup

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Boyan Slat Ocean Cleanup: Plastic Soup Collection

By WhatsOrb

Great Pacific garbage patch: giant plastic trap put to sea again. Boyan Slat’s Ocean Cleanup System, nicknamed ‘Wilson,’ broke when first deployed, but its creator is buoyant about the second attempt to clean up the 'plastic soup.'  A floating device designed to catch plastic waste has been redeployed in a second attempt to clean up a huge garbage swirling island in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii. Boyan Slat Ocean Cleanup On Twitter Boyan Slat, the Ocean Cleanup project creator, announced on Twitter that a 600 meter (2,000ft) long floating boom that broke apart late last year was sent back to the Great Pacific garbage patch this week after four months of repair. Recommended:  The Ocean Cleanup: Boyan Slat Champion Of The Earth A ship towed the U-shaped barrier from San Francisco to the patch in September to trap the plastic. But during the four months at sea, the boom broke apart under constant waves and wind, and the boom was not retaining the plastic it caught. “Hopefully, nature doesn’t have too many surprises in store for us this time,” Slat tweeted. “Either way, we’re set to learn a lot from this campaign.” Fitted with solar-powered lights, cameras, sensors, and satellite antennas, the device intends to communicate its position at all times, allowing a support vessel to fish out the collected plastic every few months and transport it to dry land. {youtube}                                                 Boyan Slat Ocean Cleanup: Restart Plastic Soup Collection                                                           System 001/B - Technological Challenges   Recommended:  The first product made with plastic from the Great Pacific garbage patch The plastic barrier with a tapered three-meter deep (10ft deep) screen is intended to act like a coastline, trapping some of the 1.8tn pieces of plastic that scientists estimate are swirling in the patch while allowing marine life to swim beneath it safely. What does the ocean clean up do? A significant percentage of the ocean's plastic drifts into large systems of circulating ocean currents, known as gyres. Once trapped in a gyre, the plastic breaks down into smaller pieces called microplastics – causing tremendous harm to marine life that mistake the particles for food. Plastic Soup Clean Up Explanation Trash accumulates in five ocean garbage patches, the largest one impacting our ecosystems, health, and economies. Solving it requires a combination of closing the source and cleaning up what has already accumulated in the ocean. Recommended:  Microplastics Can Be Moved From The Ocean: Is It Harming Us? Boyan Slat Cleanup Oceans Garbage Patches The ocean is big. Cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch using conventional methods – vessels and nets – would take thousands of years and tens of billions of dollars to complete. Our passive systems are estimated to remove 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage patch in just five years, and at a fraction of the cost.  What is the ocean cleanup made of? However, most packaging and fishing gear (the two primary sources of ocean plastic) is made of buoyant types of plastic (Polyethylene and Polypropylene), and most life can be found in the top part of the ocean, which is why The Ocean Cleanup focuses on the floating plastic. Ocean Cleanup:  Create A Coastline Where There is None The challenge of cleaning up the gyres is that plastic pollution is spread across millions of square kilometers and travels in all directions. Our cleanup technology has been designed to do the hard job of concentrating the plastic first before it can be effectively removed from the ocean. The system consists of a long floater that sits at the water's surface and a skirt that hangs beneath it. The floater provides buoyancy to the entire system, while the skirt prevents debris from escaping underneath and leads it into the retention system, or cod end. A cork line above the skirt prevents overtopping and keeps the skirt afloat. Ocean Cleanup By Using Natural Ocean Forces For this area, active cleanup methods would be too energy-intensive; this is why we have chosen a passive design. The cleanup systems rely on natural forces to navigate the patches – a feature that also increases its survivability in the harsh ocean environment. Both the plastic and system are being carried by the wind, waves, and current. However, to catch plastics, there needs to be a difference in speed between the system and the plastics. Using a sea anchor to slow down the system, plastic can be retained and captured. How much does it cost to cleanup the ocean? At a cost of $5,000 to $20,000 per day, it would cost between $122 million and $489 million for one year. That's a lot of money and that's only for boat time. Those figures don't include equipment, disposal or labor costs and keep in mind that not all debris items can be scooped up with a net. Boyan Slat: ‘Concentrate The Plastic And Take It Out The combination of natural forces and a sea anchor creates a drag, making the system move consistently slower than the plastic while allowing it to be captured. Recommended:  Combing Plastic Waste Out Oceans: Competition For Boyan Slat The Ocean Clean Up’s Expected Impact Our floating systems are designed to capture plastics ranging from small pieces just millimeters in size up to large debris, including massive discarded fishing nets (ghost nets), which can be tens of meters wide. Models show that a full-scale cleanup system roll-out could clean 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in just five years. After fleets of systems are deployed into every ocean gyre, combined with source reduction, The Ocean Cleanup projects to be able to remove 90% of ocean plastic by 2040. How much plastic has been removed from the ocean? A group of ocean activists removed 80,000 pounds, or 40 tons, of plastic waste from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a massive gyre of floating garbage in the Pacific Ocean. The expedition was led by the nonprofit Ocean Voyages Institute, which was primarily interested in removing discarded fishing nets from the water The Ocean Cleanup System Is Autonomous Algorithms help specify the optimal deployment locations, after which the systems roam the gyres autonomously. Real-time telemetry will allow us to monitor the condition, performance, and trajectory of each system. System 001: Energy Neutral Our systems fully rely on the ocean's natural forces and do not require an external energy source to catch and concentrate the plastic. All electronics used, such as lights and AIS, are powered by solar energy. Ocean Cleanup Is Scalable The modular fleet of systems can be scaled up gradually, allowing us to learn from the field and improve the technology along the way. The more systems deployed, the faster the clean-up will be. Ocean Cleanup handling Vessel Traffic No heavily-trafficked shipping routes traverse the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, so the chances of a vessel coming across an ocean cleanup system are minimal. On average, only 5 vessels can be found in an area twice the size of Texas. Recommended:  Waste In Oceans: Plastic Soup And The Great Bubble Barrier But, if a vessel passes through the patch, we will implement extensive measures to ensure both vessels' safety and cleanup systems. Each fleet's future system will be equipped with lanterns, radar reflectors, navigational signals, GPS, and anti-collision beacons. The AIS will continuously broadcast the systems' location to passing vessels, and the GPS will track the location of our systems, should they veer out of the patch. The US Coast Guard will chart the area as a special operations zone and issue a Notice to Mariners concerning our systems' presence. The Ocean Cleanup Safeguarding Sealife Protecting the natural environment is at the heart of what we do. It is the driver behind our efforts to remove large amounts of plastic pollution from the world’s oceans. Hence, safeguarding sea life has been the number one driver behind our technology. For the 116 days of the first mission, a team of scientists and experts conducted extensive monitoring and observation campaigns to understand any possible environmental impact of System 001 and minimize any potential harm to marine life. Over 1045 hours of visual and acoustic monitoring were performed. During this time, no substantial interference with System 001 and the ocean ecosystem and/or marine life was observed, nor did we observe any entanglement or entrapment of marine animals or protected species. As we continue to learn more about the technology and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch's natural behaviors, we will maintain a vessel nearby with trained observers to see how the system interacts with the natural environment. While extracting plastic, people will always check for marine life before the plastic is lifted out of the water. We have also conducted an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for System 001 through an independent agency, CSA Ocean Sciences, which did not identify any major risks of our method to the environment. How does plastic affect the ocean? New studies find plastic pollution is so pervasive on many beaches that its affecting their reproduction. Hundreds of thousands of seabirds ingest plastic every year. Plastic ingestion reduces the storage volume of the stomach, causing starvation. Marine mammals ingest, and get tangled up in, plastic. Ocean Cleanup System: Surviving Storms Because the cleanup systems are meant to stay in the patch for long periods of time, it is important that our systems can withstand the ocean's forces. The main component of survivability is flexibility. We designed the system to be limber enough to follow the waves, and because the system is free-floating, it can drift when subjected to high current speeds. Cover photo by Ocean Cleanup Source The Ocean Cleanup Before you go! Recommended:  Breaking: Did You Know, All You Read About CO2 Rise Is Half The Truth Did you find this an interesting article, or do you have a question or remark? Leave a comment below. We try to respond the same day. Like to write your own article about plastic pollution? Send your writing & scribble with a photo to  [email protected] , and we will write an interesting article based on your input  or subscribe .