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The Ocean Cleanup Project is essentially a scam at this point. It can't work for numerous ecological (scoops up ocean life) and engineering (the ocean is HUGE,

by cultus 8y ago

The Ocean Cleanup Project is essentially a scam at this point. It can't work for numerous ecological (scoops up ocean life) and engineering (the ocean is HUGE, corrosive, and violent) reasons. Not to mention that ocean microplastics are distributed throughout the first 100 meters of ocean water, and this goes nowhere near that deep. Of course, they dismiss these concerns or deflect with scientific BS (which the media gobbles up) whenever they are brought up. They can't get this to work on such a minuscule scale in placid water off the coast of the Netherlands, it won't work in the North Pacific on a far grander scale.

keypusher 8y ago
Cleaning up the significant amount of plastic that is on the surface still seems like a step in the right direction, even if there is other micropastic further down. The impact on ocean life is not well understood, but we do know that plastic is already having a devastating impact on such life, and I have a hard time imagining this would be worse. The engineering challenges are significant, as they are clearly discovering, but they are at least trying. Are there other more promising projects to clean up existing plastic from the ocean you are aware of?
- sandworm101 8y ago
  There is only so much money and energy in the world. Wasting resources on doomed projects doesn't help. It only takes away resources from far more efficient projects. Most ocean plastic comes form a limited number of sources, a handful of large rivers. Cleanup should begin at those rivers. This project is like someone cleaning the coal ash off the forest rather than prevent it from getting there in the first place.
  - deadwing0 8y ago
    This argument reminds me of the EEV vlog on solar raods. :D Edit: https://www.eevblog.com/2014/06/20/eevblog-632-solar-roadways-are-bullshit/ https://www.eevblog.com/2014/06/20/eevblog-632-solar-roadway...
- cultus 8y ago
  It's not a significant amount. It's important to grasp just how huge the ocean is. This would clean up a pointlessly small fraction of the garbage patch. Not only that, but it would be destroyed in a storm quite quickly, generating even more marine debris.
  - mrpopo 8y ago
    > Not only that, but it would be destroyed in a storm quite quickly, generating even more marine debris. This was mentioned multiple times, but it's even more daring in your comment. How can it be so insignificant and pointless, but at the same time cause of worry for more marine debris?
    - cultus 8y ago
      Well, it's not a significant amount of new plastic on a global scale. However, why does it make sense to spend gobs of money on something that at best won't help and at worst will make things slightly worse? Why not invest in proven strategys, like bag bans or trash collection around populated rivers and bays? An example of this is the Baltimore trash wheel cleaning up the bay. It's cheap and effective, because it cleans up garbage when it is: a) Not broken down to be microscopic. b) Concentrated. I should also point out that they claim they can finance a big part of this by recycling the degraded ocean plastic. I shouldn't have to tell you that that is absolutely whackadoo.
- zdragnar 8y ago
  I don't mean to sound condescending, but I truly don't understand this line of thinking, as I've seen it crop up every so often. The notion that "at least they're doing something" isn't a valid justification in my mind. There are plenty of reasons to believe that this wouldn't work, and adding more garbage certainly does make matters worse (even if by a miniscule amount, relatively speaking). As for more promising projects, we'd be better off doing research to find those projects than throwing away people's money on a pipe dream. Pretty much any project at this point would be better- engineering bacteria to eat it, Dyson funnels to very slowly separate it out, whatever. I'm not a marine or materials scientist. I'm a person with limited funds to contribute towards things, and I don't like being sold snake oil, especially when the response to criticism is "well at least they're doing something!"
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - stephen_g 8y ago
    There was similar responses to the ‘solar roads’ projects. There were so many practical problems, and at the end of the day, it was just throwing away 30-50% efficiency putting them flat in the road, compared to just putting panels on structures next to the road, or on building roofs, or in solar farms. So it was always going to be way more expensive per-kWh generated and per unit area of solar panels, meaning that it was both a waste of money and resources. But so many people were willing to ignore it, because “at least they’re doing something”. Instead, better to do the calculations to see if these kind of things are feasible, and if not, to look for an idea that is more feasible rather than wasting time, money and resources on things we know won’t really help!
    - riskable 8y ago
      I thought the point of solar roads wasn't that they were more efficient than, "just putting them on buildings or the sides of roads" it was more of a way to utilize otherwise "wasted space". As in, when you're laying down a new road why not add some solar generating capacity as just another thing you lay into the pavement just like those little reflectors or paint.
- ummonk 8y ago
  >The impact on ocean life is not well understood, but we do know that plastic is already having a devastating impact on such life, and I have a hard time imagining this would be worse. I can't tell whether this is satire or not. This seems to be the textbook example of "We've got to do something about it! At least they're doing something! What could possibly go wrong?" I've come to be accustomed to much more technically astute posts at HN, and am pretty surprised by the kinds of comments I'm seeing in this thread. I guess the high quality technical discussion usually occurs when talking about software or theoretical fields.
  - solarengineer 8y ago
    Per their technology explanation video, marine life would swim under or away from the boom. The impact is indeed not well understood. They are closely observing the first boom with the intention of iterating and improving. It doesn't appear to be destructive like an ocean trawler - the ill effects of which are very well understood and yet people continue to eat harmfully procured fish. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1EAeNdTFHU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1EAeNdTFHU
crispinb 8y ago
"Scam" is unfair, at least if directed towards motivations. The whole thing is entirely well-meaning. But it's yet another consequence of the emerging pop culture of stupidity (the rebellion against expertise, no-knowledge crowd-funding, etc). Everyone in the maritime world always knew it would never work because it was based on a naive kid's brain dump. For fuck's sake, the initial plan was to anchor the bloody thing! Slat's excellent intentions don't equip him to design & manage a $20mil project.
- cultus 8y ago
  I would agree that it is unfair, except as I point out they deliberately ignore or attack critics, and do not offer any actual valid scientific arugments in return. This pattern includes ignoring or even demeaning scientists and engineers who dare criticize them (including quite sexist behavior towards some female scientists). They do this while raking in many millions. This demonstration project uses 30-year old boom technology, and would very quickly fail in the open ocean (as a previous attempt did). So, either they are so blissfully ignorant of the challenges of what they are trying to do (literally harder than sending humans to Mars) and are continuing to raise funds out of the best intentions, or they are scamming. For a project that seems to rely almost exclusively on pointing out that the founder is young, I'm guessing the second one.
  - crispinb 8y ago
    My personal threshold for claiming dishonest motivations is higher than yours. I'd require, at a minimum, specific & direct evidence re the individuals involved, whereas the childish defensiveness you've come across is perfectly explicable as part of the general ignorant pop culture that encouraged the misguided project in the first place. Anyway, that aside, we're totally on the same page re the merits of the project. It's a terrible waste of the good intentions (& resources) of the donors, and can only lead to yet more cynicism.
  - solarengineer 8y ago
    I don't know about the sexist behaviour, do you have any references? Let us not rush to allege that a project is likely to be a scam because the founder is young. The Trillion Trees campaign is also largely by really young people. The Ocean Cleanup folks don't harp so much about the founder's age. There's a whole team working there, and I haven't heard any grumblings from the team of resentment about him getting all the attention. As for scientific documentation, here is their feasibility study: https://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/Documents/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres_V2_0.pdf https://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/Docu...
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johannes1234321 8y ago
I wouldn't finance it and rather spend money on other projects where I'd expect larger impact. Nonetheless each bit of trash taken out is a good piece of trash taken out. Grabbing even just one piece of trash while on a beach is good. A concern I see however is more on negative impact on small bacterial, algaes and other things on the ocean's surface which are part of the lifecycle of bird and fish. But that's not really an area of expertise for me.
deleted 8y ago
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pasta 8y ago
Yeah, we can never land a rocket, self driving cars will never happen, 4MB of RAM is enough for everyone... If you don't step you will never know how to walk. The companies who are working with the Ocean Cleanup Project are one of the best marine companies in the world. They are not naive about what an ocean is. Ofcourse this is also a learning project. So a lot of money is invested just to learn more. But I don't think you should call it a scam. The reason they only collect at the surface is that it's less likely they will scoop up ocean life. This will make the first steps easier.
deleted 8y ago
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alex_duf 8y ago
At least they're trying, it's not like they were going to do any harm. Launching a rocket, or even writing software never works the first time, just let them iterate on their solution. Also, it's easy to criticise, but I'm not exactly seeing people fighting to clean up our mess.
specialist 8y ago
You and jacobwilliamroy seem to be well informed on this topic. I post my hair brained notions here, in the unlikely chance they're helpful. First is create a fleet of autonomous barges, like Baltimore's Mr Trash Wheel. They would do station keeping using the wave glider tech (submerged wings). Larger (manned) ships would gather up whatever debris the barges collect. http://www.bluebird-electric.net/oceanography/Ocean_Plastic_International_Rescue/River_Water_Wheel_Baltimore_Mr_Trash_Atlantic_Ocean_Clean_Up.htm http://www.bluebird-electric.net/oceanography/Ocean_Plastic_... jacobwilliamroy's comments about the by catch is probably spot on. So the barge notion may suck. Alternately, garbage cleanup could become a massive jobs program. Which suits me fine. Second is to gather the microplastics by creating "floaters" modeled after jellyfish. I imagine a future membrane tech that can filter out the plastics without scooping up too much microscopic life. Again, floaters would do station keeping using wave glider tech. Most of the "business end" of the floaters would submerge to optimum filtering depth, then surface themselves for collection and service. https://www.liquid-robotics.com/wave-glider/how-it-works/ https://www.liquid-robotics.com/wave-glider/how-it-works/
blablabla123 8y ago
Just because the project doesn't start with an MVP but an actual research phase, doesn't mean it's a scam. Also I guess it's positive about the project that they start simple. Also IMHO there must be ways to separate plastic from living being, for instance by taking advantage of different weights, angular momenta etc.

by cultus 8y ago

keypusher 8y ago

Cleaning up the significant amount of plastic that is on the surface still seems like a step in the right direction, even if there is other micropastic further down. The impact on ocean life is not well understood, but we do know that plastic is already having a devastating impact on such life, and I have a hard time imagining this would be worse. The engineering challenges are significant, as they are clearly discovering, but they are at least trying. Are there other more promising projects to clean up existing plastic from the ocean you are aware of?

sandworm101 8y ago
There is only so much money and energy in the world. Wasting resources on doomed projects doesn't help. It only takes away resources from far more efficient projects. Most ocean plastic comes form a limited number of sources, a handful of large rivers. Cleanup should begin at those rivers. This project is like someone cleaning the coal ash off the forest rather than prevent it from getting there in the first place.
- deadwing0 8y ago
  This argument reminds me of the EEV vlog on solar raods. :D Edit: https://www.eevblog.com/2014/06/20/eevblog-632-solar-roadways-are-bullshit/ https://www.eevblog.com/2014/06/20/eevblog-632-solar-roadway...
cultus 8y ago
It's not a significant amount. It's important to grasp just how huge the ocean is. This would clean up a pointlessly small fraction of the garbage patch. Not only that, but it would be destroyed in a storm quite quickly, generating even more marine debris.
- mrpopo 8y ago
  > Not only that, but it would be destroyed in a storm quite quickly, generating even more marine debris. This was mentioned multiple times, but it's even more daring in your comment. How can it be so insignificant and pointless, but at the same time cause of worry for more marine debris?
  - cultus 8y ago
    Well, it's not a significant amount of new plastic on a global scale. However, why does it make sense to spend gobs of money on something that at best won't help and at worst will make things slightly worse? Why not invest in proven strategys, like bag bans or trash collection around populated rivers and bays? An example of this is the Baltimore trash wheel cleaning up the bay. It's cheap and effective, because it cleans up garbage when it is: a) Not broken down to be microscopic. b) Concentrated. I should also point out that they claim they can finance a big part of this by recycling the degraded ocean plastic. I shouldn't have to tell you that that is absolutely whackadoo.
zdragnar 8y ago
I don't mean to sound condescending, but I truly don't understand this line of thinking, as I've seen it crop up every so often. The notion that "at least they're doing something" isn't a valid justification in my mind. There are plenty of reasons to believe that this wouldn't work, and adding more garbage certainly does make matters worse (even if by a miniscule amount, relatively speaking). As for more promising projects, we'd be better off doing research to find those projects than throwing away people's money on a pipe dream. Pretty much any project at this point would be better- engineering bacteria to eat it, Dyson funnels to very slowly separate it out, whatever. I'm not a marine or materials scientist. I'm a person with limited funds to contribute towards things, and I don't like being sold snake oil, especially when the response to criticism is "well at least they're doing something!"
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- stephen_g 8y ago
  There was similar responses to the ‘solar roads’ projects. There were so many practical problems, and at the end of the day, it was just throwing away 30-50% efficiency putting them flat in the road, compared to just putting panels on structures next to the road, or on building roofs, or in solar farms. So it was always going to be way more expensive per-kWh generated and per unit area of solar panels, meaning that it was both a waste of money and resources. But so many people were willing to ignore it, because “at least they’re doing something”. Instead, better to do the calculations to see if these kind of things are feasible, and if not, to look for an idea that is more feasible rather than wasting time, money and resources on things we know won’t really help!
  - riskable 8y ago
    I thought the point of solar roads wasn't that they were more efficient than, "just putting them on buildings or the sides of roads" it was more of a way to utilize otherwise "wasted space". As in, when you're laying down a new road why not add some solar generating capacity as just another thing you lay into the pavement just like those little reflectors or paint.
ummonk 8y ago
>The impact on ocean life is not well understood, but we do know that plastic is already having a devastating impact on such life, and I have a hard time imagining this would be worse. I can't tell whether this is satire or not. This seems to be the textbook example of "We've got to do something about it! At least they're doing something! What could possibly go wrong?" I've come to be accustomed to much more technically astute posts at HN, and am pretty surprised by the kinds of comments I'm seeing in this thread. I guess the high quality technical discussion usually occurs when talking about software or theoretical fields.
- solarengineer 8y ago
  Per their technology explanation video, marine life would swim under or away from the boom. The impact is indeed not well understood. They are closely observing the first boom with the intention of iterating and improving. It doesn't appear to be destructive like an ocean trawler - the ill effects of which are very well understood and yet people continue to eat harmfully procured fish. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1EAeNdTFHU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1EAeNdTFHU

crispinb 8y ago

"Scam" is unfair, at least if directed towards motivations. The whole thing is entirely well-meaning. But it's yet another consequence of the emerging pop culture of stupidity (the rebellion against expertise, no-knowledge crowd-funding, etc). Everyone in the maritime world always knew it would never work because it was based on a naive kid's brain dump. For fuck's sake, the initial plan was to anchor the bloody thing! Slat's excellent intentions don't equip him to design & manage a $20mil project.

cultus 8y ago
I would agree that it is unfair, except as I point out they deliberately ignore or attack critics, and do not offer any actual valid scientific arugments in return. This pattern includes ignoring or even demeaning scientists and engineers who dare criticize them (including quite sexist behavior towards some female scientists). They do this while raking in many millions. This demonstration project uses 30-year old boom technology, and would very quickly fail in the open ocean (as a previous attempt did). So, either they are so blissfully ignorant of the challenges of what they are trying to do (literally harder than sending humans to Mars) and are continuing to raise funds out of the best intentions, or they are scamming. For a project that seems to rely almost exclusively on pointing out that the founder is young, I'm guessing the second one.
- crispinb 8y ago
  My personal threshold for claiming dishonest motivations is higher than yours. I'd require, at a minimum, specific & direct evidence re the individuals involved, whereas the childish defensiveness you've come across is perfectly explicable as part of the general ignorant pop culture that encouraged the misguided project in the first place. Anyway, that aside, we're totally on the same page re the merits of the project. It's a terrible waste of the good intentions (& resources) of the donors, and can only lead to yet more cynicism.
- solarengineer 8y ago
  I don't know about the sexist behaviour, do you have any references? Let us not rush to allege that a project is likely to be a scam because the founder is young. The Trillion Trees campaign is also largely by really young people. The Ocean Cleanup folks don't harp so much about the founder's age. There's a whole team working there, and I haven't heard any grumblings from the team of resentment about him getting all the attention. As for scientific documentation, here is their feasibility study: https://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/Documents/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres_V2_0.pdf https://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/media-archive/Docu...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

johannes1234321 8y ago

I wouldn't finance it and rather spend money on other projects where I'd expect larger impact. Nonetheless each bit of trash taken out is a good piece of trash taken out. Grabbing even just one piece of trash while on a beach is good. A concern I see however is more on negative impact on small bacterial, algaes and other things on the ocean's surface which are part of the lifecycle of bird and fish. But that's not really an area of expertise for me.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

pasta 8y ago

Yeah, we can never land a rocket, self driving cars will never happen, 4MB of RAM is enough for everyone... If you don't step you will never know how to walk. The companies who are working with the Ocean Cleanup Project are one of the best marine companies in the world. They are not naive about what an ocean is. Ofcourse this is also a learning project. So a lot of money is invested just to learn more. But I don't think you should call it a scam. The reason they only collect at the surface is that it's less likely they will scoop up ocean life. This will make the first steps easier.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

alex_duf 8y ago

At least they're trying, it's not like they were going to do any harm. Launching a rocket, or even writing software never works the first time, just let them iterate on their solution. Also, it's easy to criticise, but I'm not exactly seeing people fighting to clean up our mess.

specialist 8y ago

You and jacobwilliamroy seem to be well informed on this topic. I post my hair brained notions here, in the unlikely chance they're helpful. First is create a fleet of autonomous barges, like Baltimore's Mr Trash Wheel. They would do station keeping using the wave glider tech (submerged wings). Larger (manned) ships would gather up whatever debris the barges collect. http://www.bluebird-electric.net/oceanography/Ocean_Plastic_International_Rescue/River_Water_Wheel_Baltimore_Mr_Trash_Atlantic_Ocean_Clean_Up.htm http://www.bluebird-electric.net/oceanography/Ocean_Plastic_... jacobwilliamroy's comments about the by catch is probably spot on. So the barge notion may suck. Alternately, garbage cleanup could become a massive jobs program. Which suits me fine. Second is to gather the microplastics by creating "floaters" modeled after jellyfish. I imagine a future membrane tech that can filter out the plastics without scooping up too much microscopic life. Again, floaters would do station keeping using wave glider tech. Most of the "business end" of the floaters would submerge to optimum filtering depth, then surface themselves for collection and service. https://www.liquid-robotics.com/wave-glider/how-it-works/ https://www.liquid-robotics.com/wave-glider/how-it-works/

blablabla123 8y ago

Just because the project doesn't start with an MVP but an actual research phase, doesn't mean it's a scam. Also I guess it's positive about the project that they start simple. Also IMHO there must be ways to separate plastic from living being, for instance by taking advantage of different weights, angular momenta etc.