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Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for the first time

401 points by lelf 7y ago

syshum 7y ago
This is an example of Environmental Action vs Environmental Talk Innovation and actions are var more valuable than lecturing everyone and demanding governments to use taxation and violence to solve the problem.
- ocschwar 7y ago
  2nd law of thermodynamics: it's always cheaper to avoid a mess than it is to clean it up. Ergo, better to use the political route.
  - syshum 7y ago
    While yes it is cheaper to avoid the mess, innovation can lead to avoiding the mess I do not believe that the "political route" of taxation and violence is the best way to "avoid the mess", in fact I believe that will only prolong and increase the mess and do nothing to avoid it. Governments are ineffective and inefficient, all government solutions are based on threats of violence, and we know from centuries of history violence is not the solution to any problem, thus government is not the solution to any problem GOVERNMENT: If you think your problems are bad, just wait until you see our solutions
    - ocschwar 7y ago
      > I do not believe that the "political route" of taxation and violence is the best way to "avoid the mess" The reason I have clean water in my tap is that the eco-fascist goons of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority guard the Quabbin Reservoir with all the zealotry you'd expect of the Commonwealth. So, taxation and violence. And it's cheaper than forcing every resident of Massachusetts to buy a home water filter.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    I think that the point being made is that nothing is being done. It's all talk and show, including my many so-called activists. What is needed is action. Not only government action but individual action, right now. An example: Plastics used by supermarkets to pack fruits and veg. Arguably that should be banned. But equally supermarkets wouldn't do it if people didn't buy all the same. So let's just stop buying fruits and veg packed in plastic. It might mean not buying anything for some time, but we'll survive. That's called putting your money where your mouth is.
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    a random googling gave http://www.eoht.info/page/Political+thermodynamics http://www.eoht.info/page/Political+thermodynamics I'm curious now
jacknews 7y ago
Fantastic news, but how effective is it? EG, It might be more effective to catch the plastic at source, and put these barriers on river mouths. Especially in Asia, which seems to be aa major 'contributor'. Though perhaps there's also a 'great Atlantic garbage patch'
- esotericn 7y ago
  The same company also has exactly those barriers at major polluting rivers.
  - ocschwar 7y ago
    Initially it looked like their idea was only feasible in river mouths and not the open ocean. Definitely more efficient to put them in rivers, but now it looks like the ocean is fair game too.
- arkitaip 7y ago
  They are already on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZArQMFhQ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZArQMFhQ4
arkitaip 7y ago
The fact that it can catch microplastics is very impressive.
- gus_massa 7y ago
  The article and the press release has no numbers, so it's difficult to estimate how much miroplastic they got. My guess is that the holes in the net are too big to catch microplastic unless it gets stranded with other bigger plastic of plants. Also, this sentence of the article doesn't make sense: > The system's success in capturing microplastics came as a welcome surprise since microplastics tend to fall to the ocean floor rather than float on the surface, according to the press release. Since microplasitcs tend to sink, Ocean Cleanup focused on large pieces of plastic. The plastic float or sink according to it's density, not it's size.
  - bagacrap 7y ago
    Perhaps larger pieces of plastic contain trapped air that increases their bouyancy.
    - carapace 7y ago
      I'm pretty sure "microplasitcs (sic) tend to sink" is bogus nonsense.
      - hanniabu 7y ago
        They also float, it really depends on the buoyancy. I think I heard that most of the microplastics are suspending within 5 meters of the surface.
  - ridgeguy 7y ago
    There will be a size below which fluid turbulence determines particle motion rather than particle density. This minimum size will increase for particles with rough surfaces or high shape drag coefficients, or both. In air, this size is ~ 10µm diameter [1]. In seawater, it should be considerably larger because Reynold's number. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/airborne-particle https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/airborne-pa...
spaceandshit 7y ago
Joe Rogan recently talked to the organization's founder for a second time, and discussed some of these things. https://youtu.be/whRVyywTov4 https://youtu.be/whRVyywTov4
- lsh 7y ago
  that was a good watch actually, recommended
  - bagacrap 7y ago
    Meh, I thought Joe failed to ask any tough (but obvious) questions, like for an economic comparison between collection and prevention. The technologically easiest and no doubt cheapest solution is to tax plastic production. Ideally this would help shift us towards greener alternatives (corn based, silica based, paper based, reusables, etc). The revenues can go towards cleanup. I bet we could spend less money to get the same amount of used plastic if we simply paid Kuala Lumpur for their trash. Sounds a bit ludicrous but better than converting the world's waterways into a conveyor belt for trash. We simply don't have the political will though. So that will fail and so will this.
    - radicsge 7y ago
      Why do you expecting that they should solve every problem in the world? It is really parallel (collection until prevention). They really put down something on the table, pitched for their idea and delivered it. You can go ahead and execute your dream as well.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      Why would this fail when its already working?
spodek 7y ago
Let's keep in mind that prevention -- less production -- reduces pollution more than cleaning after it's there. Regulation can help, which results from popular support. Bans and other legislation in cities and nations around the world are resulting from people voicing and acting against plastic and pollution, but we're barely started. When enough of us act as consumers not to buy polluting products, producers will respond to products not selling by producing less. I would have thought I couldn't do much until I started avoiding packaged food. A few years' practice led to me filling only one load of garbage per year in 2019, 2018, and 2017 http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging-2 http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging-2 -- while saving money and time and increasing meals with friends and family and meeting my farmers. Those in food deserts or who had less time asked me to teach them to do it since it helped them. Food packaging is only one source of plastic. We can avoid other junk too, particularly relevant after Christmas. Anecdotally, here in Manhattan, piles of garbage around discarded pine trees look larger, overflowing with packaging.
- Iv 7y ago
  The first source of oceans plastic is fishing nets. Ground based sources of oceanic plastic are coastal cities. Rivers in developed countries carry very little plastic to the sea. Actually a fistful of rivers in poor population basin account for most of the inland sources of oceanic plastic. Your own trash is very unlikely to end up in the ocean.
  - CaptArmchair 7y ago
    No. That's incorrect. This study published in Nature (2017) by the Ocean Cleanup researcher contradicts your statement entirely: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15611 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15611 > Our model is calibrated against measurements available in the literature. We estimate that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste currently enters the ocean every year from rivers, with over 74% of emissions occurring between May and October. The top 20 polluting rivers, mostly located in Asia, account for 67% of the global total. The findings of this study provide baseline data for ocean plastic mass balance exercises, and assist in prioritizing future plastic debris monitoring and mitigation strategies. The likelihood of your trash ending up in the ocean depends entirely on where you live and how your trash gets processed. The only part of your statement that's somewhat correct is that rivers in developed countries carry less plastics to the oceans compared to developing countries. But "very little" is creating a false impression of the problem. Processing disposable plastic waste is a problem that can be avoided by... not using disposable plastics at all. This is first and foremost a moral choice: whether or not we want to put the health of the ecosystem of which we are part above our own personal short-term convenience. Thailand banned the use of disposable plastic bags this month: https://phys.org/news/2020-01-thai-retailers-single-use-plastic-bags.html https://phys.org/news/2020-01-thai-retailers-single-use-plas... You'd think that the Thai would oppose the ban. That's not what's happening if you gauge the sentiment on social media: https://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-ways-people-dealing-plastic-bag-ban-thailand/ https://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-ways-people-dealing-plast...
jacquesm 7y ago
It's absolutely sickening how in the food department of a supermarket it has become pretty much impossible to avoid plastic packaging. Everything that I could buy in paper wrappings only a few years ago is now wrapped in plastic. Even things like apples and sliced cheese now come with plastic attached in some way or other. Never mind the stuff in plastic clamshells that doesn't need packaging at all. (Scissors for instance)
- agumonkey 7y ago
  For people in the US: does the SF zero waste lady still has followers ?
- gpvos 7y ago
  The weird thing is that paper tends to cost more energy to produce than plastic, so in that sense plastic can be seen as the more environment-friendly choice. But yes, there's lots of stuff that doesn't need packaging at all.
  - foob4r 7y ago
    The problem is plastic lasts for decades or even centuries, ends up in the oceans, becoming food for fish that then choke on it. More energy in production for paper while true, also means that with solar and other renewable getting cheaper, that argument will be a distraction.
- dylan604 7y ago
  >Never mind the stuff in plastic clamshells that doesn't need packaging at all. (Scissors for instance) Nice example. I hate the fact that I have to use a pair of scissors to open up a brand new pair of scissors. I've been under the impression that the use of the plastic packaging has been a focus on stop-loss from theft. That makes sense to a degree in the retail environment. Remember when CDs came in those big boxes so people wouldn't shove them down their pants? The styrofoam shrink wrapped packages of meat is another one that gets me. I much prefer going to the butcher where the meat comes wrapped in paper. However, it's much more convenient for shoppers to walk up to a display to get prepackaged servings rather than waiting in line for the butcher.
walrus01 7y ago
And how much fuel was required to tow it out to the great pacific garbage patch and back again? The support vessel in the photo looks quite large. The daily operating cost for an offshore support vessel of that size is significant.
- neuronic 7y ago
  This HAS to be a troll post. This thing goes out and attempts to clean first world luxury pollution while 10 cruise liners with gullible tourists drive past it but the clean up vessel is the one where we have to bring attention to its pollution?? Before we axe this lets axe useless and shitty cruise liners first.
  - bagacrap 7y ago
    This HAS to be a troll post. The cost of cleanup should not exceed the benefit of cleanup, or it is definitionally not cleanup. The societal benefit of cruise ships is not measured in improvements to the environment, so it's harder to make a direct comparison and say if they're worth it overall. In any case, these are totally orthogonal operations. Both should be optimized.
hourislate 7y ago
These Cleaning Devices should be placed at the mouth of these 10 rivers. It would prevent 90% of all Ocean plastic. https://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-from-just-10-rivers/a-41581484 https://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-...
- mostlyjason 7y ago
  They also built a system called The Interceptor that cleans rivers https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/ https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/
  - radicsge 7y ago
    This is really cool technology, should get more advertisement
- comicjk 7y ago
  I think that article is based on outdated information. More recently people have started to look at plastic released on the open sea through fishing, and found it to be bigger than all land-based sources. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-fishing-gear-is-biggest-plastic-polluter-in-ocean-finds-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-f...
  - adaml_623 7y ago
    Sorry I think you've misread that article. Gear from fishing is "estimated to make up 10% of ocean plastic pollution". 70% of large things. 10% of total.
    - keanzu 7y ago
      Well that's some confusing reporting. The title is "Dumped fishing gear is biggest plastic polluter in ocean, finds report" yet does go on to say 10%. Greenpeace: "Ghost gear makes up an estimated 10% of the plastic waste in our oceans, but represents a much higher proportion of large plastics found floating at the surface." https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blogs/8248/ghost-gear-the-abandoned-fishing-nets-haunting-our-oceans/ https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blogs/8248/ghost-gear-t...
unexaminedlife 7y ago
If it gets bad enough future generations will outlaw non-biodegradable products. So it's also in the best interest of producers to help in these matters. In fact, this is a little off topic, but there are 2 things that may coincide here. Exorbitant salaries of executives at most if not all of those same companies that play a huge role in the devastation should redirect that money to fixing some of the environmental issues their companies are exacerbating. If those companies aren't putting enough into offsetting the problems they're causing to the environment they shouldn't be paying their executives so much money. Redirect that money to the planet. I'd go so far to say financial companies may not play a huge role directly, but certainly play an enormous role indirectly. They should be paying that same penalty (re: executive salaries / profits) based on their portfolio of companies.
Aunche 7y ago
Rather than remove plastic from the ocean, wouldn't it be easier and better for the environment to just build landfills in developing countries.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  Yeah but you don't get invited on an international book tour for obvious ideas like that.
- gizmo 7y ago
  Contrary to public perception, landfills are the most environmentally friendly way to dispose of most types of garbage. The challenge is to get the garbage to the landfill.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    This also assumes that the landfill is properly prepared. An unlined pit leaching chemicals into underground wells isn't that great.
sharcerer 7y ago
Is banning plastic from packaging really beneficial or not? Came across this 2 days back. https://twitter.com/_HannahRitchie/status/1215212756678385664 https://twitter.com/_HannahRitchie/status/121521275667838566...
ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
The ocean cleanup device is absolutely terrible for floating marine life.
- titzer 7y ago
  Not as bad as the plastic.
- mcv 7y ago
  Is there evidence for that? I've seen people claim this, but I haven't seen any supporting evidence for it. The ocean is big. At the moment, the ocean cleanup is still small. I'd suggest investigating the impact, rather than claiming there is impact without evidence. If it turns out the cure (cleanup) is worse than the disease (plastic), then it makes sense to stop the ocean cleanup. Until then, let's continue and see what this will accomplish.
  - ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
    It's been pointed out by experts in the field of floating marine life[1] [2]. Boyan has not been very co-operative with the scientists raising these concerns. The current impact is small, but they plan to have loads of these constantly operating - that will cause huge impact. [1] https://twitter.com/rebeccarhelm/status/1179861389575245824?lang=en https://twitter.com/rebeccarhelm/status/1179861389575245824?... [2] http://www.deepseanews.com/2019/02/the-ocean-cleanup-struggles-to-prove-it-will-not-harm-sea-life/ http://www.deepseanews.com/2019/02/the-ocean-cleanup-struggl...
    - mcv 7y ago
      I'm no expert on this issue, but it seems to me that the question here is not merely whether the ocean cleanup will harm marine life, but also whether not cleaning up the ocean will harm marine life. They're not there for something inconsequential, they're there to clean up the plastic, which many people assume is harmful for marine life. So the question isn't whether the cleanup is harmful, but whether it's more harmful than the alternatives, including not cleaning up. And since both parties point out how little we know about this, I would expect the answer to this question to be: we have no idea. So that's something that needs to be tested: how much of various kind of life is there before the cleanup, and how much is there after an area has been cleaned up? Until that is done, we can have no idea how big the impact will be, and in which direction that impact will be. Maybe neuston life will survive the cleanup. Maybe it will recover quickly. Maybe it won't. There might even be organisms that have adapted to the presence of plastic; what do we do with that? In any case, suggesting that cleaning up plastic from the oceans is going to be a disaster seems to me just as presumptuous as assuming that any particular method of cleaning is going to be totally perfect. It needs to be a process of discovery. Cooperation with the scientific community is absolutely vital. But doing nothing doesn't sound like a good option here.
remote_phone 7y ago
We need a law that bans all single use plastic. We should only allow one or two forms of plastic that are guaranteed recyclable and make everything else compostable.
- egdod 7y ago
  We, as in the United States? Or we, as in every country in the world but mostly the third world? The first one would be comparatively easy but would do almost no good. The second one would actually help, if it weren’t impossible, but it is.
  - mcv 7y ago
    We, as in humanity, I'd assume. Of course that means we need laws in every country, or a binding international agreement or something. In any case, "we", as in "everybody", need to quit using non-degradable plastic wrappers and bags.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  I don't think we need a full ban. The problem is plastic is so damn effective and sooo damn cheap. And that countries in certain parts of the world basically dump straight into the ocean. If all the plastics just go to landfill, they're really not a problem. We have sufficient unused terra firma to store millennia worth of plastic. Space is not an issue, collection is. And that's pretty hard to solve in the long tail of developing nations.
philshem 7y ago
Here’s an interesting 2019 New Yorker article about Ocean Cleanup https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/04/a-grand-plan-to-clean-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/04/a-grand-plan-t...
gizmo 7y ago
Unfortunately the approaches taken by Ocean Cleanup make no sense. What Ocean Cleanup is doing isn't new, they're trying strategies that have previously been tried and found to be uneconomical/ineffective. This startup has received a lot of flak from experts for a reason: they're big on hype but haven't produced any results. Sending big diesel powered boats into the sea to collect a few thousand pounds of plastic is a joke. If the goal is to capture a gigantic amount of plastic cheaply, just place nets where polluted rivers in southeast Asia meet the sea. Those rivers carry all the plastic waste from the cities to the sea, so that's where the focus should be. But cleaning the rivers in poor parts of the world isn't a sexy hi-tech problem that results in TED talks. So Ocean Cleanup will continue to make more solar-powered autonomous boondoggles and they will accomplish nothing.
- mikkelam 7y ago
  ...Which is why they built the interceptor which grabs plastic exactly at the source. As their CEO argues, you need to do both. Remove legacy ocean garbage and prevent newer garbage as well. https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/ https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/
  - bagacrap 7y ago
    It would surprise me if nets at the mouths of rivers didn't royally screw up the wildlife and/or boat traffic. And what do they do with that plastic they trap? The root problem is those societies have no better way to dispose of plastic than letting it drift to sea. Proper waste collection and disposal services are far preferable to installing a net and telling everyone, "Yo it's ok to throw all your trash in the river now." This startup is long on hype and has zero results. Ok they spent tons of money to collect a few lbs of trash. The CEO was on Joe Rogan last month telling everyone he was going to clean up half the patch in 5 years (not even sure what that means since it's constantly growing). How much did those ships cost to run per day though? $50k. So he doesn't even have a working POC if you factor in costs. He's just out there on a premature victory tour, doing more harm than good by convincing people that someone else has solved the plastic problem for them. What a hero.
Steuard 7y ago
Last I heard, there were serious concerns that these cleanup devices would wind up absolutely devastating ocean ecosystems that naturally form in the same places that plastic piles up: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/ocean-cleanup-project-could-destroy-neuston/580693/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/ocean-cl... I got this link from a Twitter thread last fall: https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1179861389575245824 https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1179861389575245824 The Ocean Cleanup folks responded (there's a link in the thread), and the author who raised concerns responded in turn (also linked). To my eye, it seems like there are some pretty wide open scientific questions about the impacted ecosystems, and I'm not at all convinced that the Ocean Cleanup folks have demonstrated sufficient care about those uncertainties and concerns.
- radicsge 7y ago
  Since the plastic is breaking down (these patches would disappear without supply) and I guess you yourself also doesn't want to pollute the ocean with new plastic not sure why is this an issue. Or do you suggest to continue to pollute the ocean?
Reedx 7y ago
Cleanup is good, but are there efforts in identifying and cutting off the major inputs? That should be step 1 to have the biggest impact. As long as there are are literal dump trucks of trash being emptied straight into rivers... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeDY3I841q0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeDY3I841q0 ...it feels like we're spinning our wheels in almost comical fashion.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  Yes the same startup is trying to collect trash at the mouths of rivers. But even that is not far enough upstream. The problem must be tackled before the trash gets into the river. But how do you convince a developing country to invest in waste disposal infrastructure that has no economic benefit to them? Politics is much harder than tech. This startup might as well be funded by the petroleum industry. If they can convince the lay person that "we're on it" ie that someone else is solving the plastic issue, and individual consumers can go back to using as much plastic as they wish, it will be a terrific investment.
OscarCunningham 7y ago
These comments are full of arguments where one person suggests a course of action and another person replies that the alternatives are worse (plastic vs paper, wild fish vs farmed, cleaning up plastic vs cutting carbon). It's impossible for anyone to fully foresee the environmental consequences of the products they buy. This is the reason why the only solutions to these problems is for our governments to impose Pigovian taxes for harms to the environment (and equal subsidies for helps to the environment). Then all the consequences of our choices filter back to us in monetary terms. No other method is capable of weighing all the different factors.
aj7 7y ago
Meaningless without metrics such as energy cost per kg removed, etc. Do we have adequate means to reuse or dispose of the waste acquired? Does it have value that improves the metrics, or are there additional costs once the boat comes in? This technology is more useful once we have eliminated the waste SUPPLY, I suspect.
- radicsge 7y ago
  You are forgetting the damage that the plastic is doing for the wildlife / fishes. The plastic is breaking down to the size that is impossible to capture. This project is needed yesterday already.
_0ffh 7y ago
Boyan Slat was on the Joe Rogan Experience about a month ago. If you're interested in the topic, I recommend you watch (or listen to) it!
JetBen 7y ago
Already got the next assignment for this kid once he's done with this project - get rid of space junk. =)
mrtrombone 7y ago
This has been an interesting discussion but I am surprised at the high level of criticism towards the project. There seems to be two primary critiques of the project: 1. This should not be an area of focus - There are better climate change opportunities to put money towards 2. The project is ineffective and introduces a lot of other environmental problems For the first point it seems like people are arguing as if it is a binary problem. It isn’t - The threat of climate change / environmental damage is an incredibly complex one that will not be fixed by a single technology / focus/ policy change. For me the questions are a. ’Are existing plastics in our ocean a problem? (yes) b. If someone is passionate about this should they have a crack at improving things? (yes) This is not consuming all the worlds available financing for environmental action so I don’t think wasted resourcing is a particularly good argument. Several commentators also talk about focusing on other ‘lower’ hanging fruit but this is not an objective measure - For a team made up of excellent engineers, oceanographers, fluid dynamics experts etc this may be a lower hanging fruit than trying to implement large scale policy change. For the second point it comes down to the motivations of the team and their capacity and capability to improve the product. I would presume the team are incredibly passionate about improving the environment and so things like danger to floating marine life, use of diesel in boats etc would absolutely be something they are aware of and actively looking to mitigate. The fact this is (at least) the third iteration demonstrates they are working to improve on what they know is a currently flawed solution - This is development cycle! This is not to say that critique is bad. Hopefully the team are humble enough to absorb the critique and continue to iterate on their solution to resolve the real issues raised but as long as there is a continued focus on the goal of environmental cleanup and good governance surrounding this I think this is a fantastic project and hopefully it is joined by many more ambitious activities.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  I would add that people have noted that the Pacific Garbage Patch is large and has a low density of plastic. I assume that ocean also has a relatively low density of fish altogether but industrial fishing is able to catch a pretty large proportion of these at this point (with beneficial and problem consequences). With plastic not trying to flee and fish moving, it doesn't seems a-priori impossible to create a device that would just skim a large portion of the plastic off. Of course, unless the world's nation change their policies, this will be moot and environmental destruction generally will accelerate given our present politics. But shitting on this particular project hardly seems a useful way to force this absolutely necessary general change.
trekrich 7y ago
Five Asian Countries Dump More Plastic Into Oceans Than Anyone Else Combined: How You Can Help https://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahleung/2018/04/21/five-asian-countries-dump-more-plastic-than-anyone-else-combined-how-you-can-help/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahleung/2018/04/21/five-asi... more focus needs to be placed here. Everyone can do their bit. But they need to do more.
- newguy1234 7y ago
  The same guy in the article is also making a device that cleans river water before it goes into the ocean. I think it is a good idea overall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZArQMFhQ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZArQMFhQ4
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  I think it might be useful for governments globally to try to tackle these international problems. We all suffer from plastic in the ocean so its in everyone's interest to stop it.
dang 7y ago
Url changed from https://www.ecowatch.com/ocean-cleaning-device-plastic-2640832397.html https://www.ecowatch.com/ocean-cleaning-device-plastic-26408..., which points to this.
popopje 7y ago
An interesting article re wildlife that lives at the ocean's surface and drifts around in the same way that plastic does and how this may affect it https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/ocean-cleanup-project-could-destroy-neuston/580693/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/ocean-cl... plus their response https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/the-ocean-cleanup-and-the-neuston/ https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/the-ocean-cleanup-and-th...
ggregoire 7y ago
They also built a solar-powered plastics interceptor boat to clean at the source. https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers
ykevinator 7y ago
This is great. Doers versus talkers,nice to see a doer get a win

401 points by lelf 7y ago

This is an example of Environmental Action vs Environmental Talk Innovation and actions are var more valuable than lecturing everyone and demanding governments to use taxation and violence to solve the problem.

ocschwar 7y ago
2nd law of thermodynamics: it's always cheaper to avoid a mess than it is to clean it up. Ergo, better to use the political route.
- syshum 7y ago
  While yes it is cheaper to avoid the mess, innovation can lead to avoiding the mess I do not believe that the "political route" of taxation and violence is the best way to "avoid the mess", in fact I believe that will only prolong and increase the mess and do nothing to avoid it. Governments are ineffective and inefficient, all government solutions are based on threats of violence, and we know from centuries of history violence is not the solution to any problem, thus government is not the solution to any problem GOVERNMENT: If you think your problems are bad, just wait until you see our solutions
  - ocschwar 7y ago
    > I do not believe that the "political route" of taxation and violence is the best way to "avoid the mess" The reason I have clean water in my tap is that the eco-fascist goons of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority guard the Quabbin Reservoir with all the zealotry you'd expect of the Commonwealth. So, taxation and violence. And it's cheaper than forcing every resident of Massachusetts to buy a home water filter.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  I think that the point being made is that nothing is being done. It's all talk and show, including my many so-called activists. What is needed is action. Not only government action but individual action, right now. An example: Plastics used by supermarkets to pack fruits and veg. Arguably that should be banned. But equally supermarkets wouldn't do it if people didn't buy all the same. So let's just stop buying fruits and veg packed in plastic. It might mean not buying anything for some time, but we'll survive. That's called putting your money where your mouth is.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  a random googling gave http://www.eoht.info/page/Political+thermodynamics http://www.eoht.info/page/Political+thermodynamics I'm curious now

jacknews 7y ago

Fantastic news, but how effective is it? EG, It might be more effective to catch the plastic at source, and put these barriers on river mouths. Especially in Asia, which seems to be aa major 'contributor'. Though perhaps there's also a 'great Atlantic garbage patch'

esotericn 7y ago
The same company also has exactly those barriers at major polluting rivers.
- ocschwar 7y ago
  Initially it looked like their idea was only feasible in river mouths and not the open ocean. Definitely more efficient to put them in rivers, but now it looks like the ocean is fair game too.
arkitaip 7y ago
They are already on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZArQMFhQ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZArQMFhQ4

arkitaip 7y ago

The fact that it can catch microplastics is very impressive.

gus_massa 7y ago
The article and the press release has no numbers, so it's difficult to estimate how much miroplastic they got. My guess is that the holes in the net are too big to catch microplastic unless it gets stranded with other bigger plastic of plants. Also, this sentence of the article doesn't make sense: > The system's success in capturing microplastics came as a welcome surprise since microplastics tend to fall to the ocean floor rather than float on the surface, according to the press release. Since microplasitcs tend to sink, Ocean Cleanup focused on large pieces of plastic. The plastic float or sink according to it's density, not it's size.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  Perhaps larger pieces of plastic contain trapped air that increases their bouyancy.
  - carapace 7y ago
    I'm pretty sure "microplasitcs (sic) tend to sink" is bogus nonsense.
    - hanniabu 7y ago
      They also float, it really depends on the buoyancy. I think I heard that most of the microplastics are suspending within 5 meters of the surface.
- ridgeguy 7y ago
  There will be a size below which fluid turbulence determines particle motion rather than particle density. This minimum size will increase for particles with rough surfaces or high shape drag coefficients, or both. In air, this size is ~ 10µm diameter [1]. In seawater, it should be considerably larger because Reynold's number. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/airborne-particle https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/airborne-pa...

spaceandshit 7y ago

Joe Rogan recently talked to the organization's founder for a second time, and discussed some of these things. https://youtu.be/whRVyywTov4 https://youtu.be/whRVyywTov4

lsh 7y ago
that was a good watch actually, recommended
- bagacrap 7y ago
  Meh, I thought Joe failed to ask any tough (but obvious) questions, like for an economic comparison between collection and prevention. The technologically easiest and no doubt cheapest solution is to tax plastic production. Ideally this would help shift us towards greener alternatives (corn based, silica based, paper based, reusables, etc). The revenues can go towards cleanup. I bet we could spend less money to get the same amount of used plastic if we simply paid Kuala Lumpur for their trash. Sounds a bit ludicrous but better than converting the world's waterways into a conveyor belt for trash. We simply don't have the political will though. So that will fail and so will this.
  - radicsge 7y ago
    Why do you expecting that they should solve every problem in the world? It is really parallel (collection until prevention). They really put down something on the table, pitched for their idea and delivered it. You can go ahead and execute your dream as well.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Why would this fail when its already working?

spodek 7y ago

Let's keep in mind that prevention -- less production -- reduces pollution more than cleaning after it's there. Regulation can help, which results from popular support. Bans and other legislation in cities and nations around the world are resulting from people voicing and acting against plastic and pollution, but we're barely started. When enough of us act as consumers not to buy polluting products, producers will respond to products not selling by producing less. I would have thought I couldn't do much until I started avoiding packaged food. A few years' practice led to me filling only one load of garbage per year in 2019, 2018, and 2017 http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging-2 http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging-2 -- while saving money and time and increasing meals with friends and family and meeting my farmers. Those in food deserts or who had less time asked me to teach them to do it since it helped them. Food packaging is only one source of plastic. We can avoid other junk too, particularly relevant after Christmas. Anecdotally, here in Manhattan, piles of garbage around discarded pine trees look larger, overflowing with packaging.

Iv 7y ago
The first source of oceans plastic is fishing nets. Ground based sources of oceanic plastic are coastal cities. Rivers in developed countries carry very little plastic to the sea. Actually a fistful of rivers in poor population basin account for most of the inland sources of oceanic plastic. Your own trash is very unlikely to end up in the ocean.
- CaptArmchair 7y ago
  No. That's incorrect. This study published in Nature (2017) by the Ocean Cleanup researcher contradicts your statement entirely: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15611 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15611 > Our model is calibrated against measurements available in the literature. We estimate that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste currently enters the ocean every year from rivers, with over 74% of emissions occurring between May and October. The top 20 polluting rivers, mostly located in Asia, account for 67% of the global total. The findings of this study provide baseline data for ocean plastic mass balance exercises, and assist in prioritizing future plastic debris monitoring and mitigation strategies. The likelihood of your trash ending up in the ocean depends entirely on where you live and how your trash gets processed. The only part of your statement that's somewhat correct is that rivers in developed countries carry less plastics to the oceans compared to developing countries. But "very little" is creating a false impression of the problem. Processing disposable plastic waste is a problem that can be avoided by... not using disposable plastics at all. This is first and foremost a moral choice: whether or not we want to put the health of the ecosystem of which we are part above our own personal short-term convenience. Thailand banned the use of disposable plastic bags this month: https://phys.org/news/2020-01-thai-retailers-single-use-plastic-bags.html https://phys.org/news/2020-01-thai-retailers-single-use-plas... You'd think that the Thai would oppose the ban. That's not what's happening if you gauge the sentiment on social media: https://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-ways-people-dealing-plastic-bag-ban-thailand/ https://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-ways-people-dealing-plast...

jacquesm 7y ago

It's absolutely sickening how in the food department of a supermarket it has become pretty much impossible to avoid plastic packaging. Everything that I could buy in paper wrappings only a few years ago is now wrapped in plastic. Even things like apples and sliced cheese now come with plastic attached in some way or other. Never mind the stuff in plastic clamshells that doesn't need packaging at all. (Scissors for instance)

agumonkey 7y ago
For people in the US: does the SF zero waste lady still has followers ?
gpvos 7y ago
The weird thing is that paper tends to cost more energy to produce than plastic, so in that sense plastic can be seen as the more environment-friendly choice. But yes, there's lots of stuff that doesn't need packaging at all.
- foob4r 7y ago
  The problem is plastic lasts for decades or even centuries, ends up in the oceans, becoming food for fish that then choke on it. More energy in production for paper while true, also means that with solar and other renewable getting cheaper, that argument will be a distraction.
dylan604 7y ago
>Never mind the stuff in plastic clamshells that doesn't need packaging at all. (Scissors for instance) Nice example. I hate the fact that I have to use a pair of scissors to open up a brand new pair of scissors. I've been under the impression that the use of the plastic packaging has been a focus on stop-loss from theft. That makes sense to a degree in the retail environment. Remember when CDs came in those big boxes so people wouldn't shove them down their pants? The styrofoam shrink wrapped packages of meat is another one that gets me. I much prefer going to the butcher where the meat comes wrapped in paper. However, it's much more convenient for shoppers to walk up to a display to get prepackaged servings rather than waiting in line for the butcher.

walrus01 7y ago

And how much fuel was required to tow it out to the great pacific garbage patch and back again? The support vessel in the photo looks quite large. The daily operating cost for an offshore support vessel of that size is significant.

neuronic 7y ago
This HAS to be a troll post. This thing goes out and attempts to clean first world luxury pollution while 10 cruise liners with gullible tourists drive past it but the clean up vessel is the one where we have to bring attention to its pollution?? Before we axe this lets axe useless and shitty cruise liners first.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  This HAS to be a troll post. The cost of cleanup should not exceed the benefit of cleanup, or it is definitionally not cleanup. The societal benefit of cruise ships is not measured in improvements to the environment, so it's harder to make a direct comparison and say if they're worth it overall. In any case, these are totally orthogonal operations. Both should be optimized.

hourislate 7y ago

These Cleaning Devices should be placed at the mouth of these 10 rivers. It would prevent 90% of all Ocean plastic. https://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-from-just-10-rivers/a-41581484 https://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-...

mostlyjason 7y ago
They also built a system called The Interceptor that cleans rivers https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/ https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/
- radicsge 7y ago
  This is really cool technology, should get more advertisement
comicjk 7y ago
I think that article is based on outdated information. More recently people have started to look at plastic released on the open sea through fishing, and found it to be bigger than all land-based sources. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-fishing-gear-is-biggest-plastic-polluter-in-ocean-finds-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-f...
- adaml_623 7y ago
  Sorry I think you've misread that article. Gear from fishing is "estimated to make up 10% of ocean plastic pollution". 70% of large things. 10% of total.
  - keanzu 7y ago
    Well that's some confusing reporting. The title is "Dumped fishing gear is biggest plastic polluter in ocean, finds report" yet does go on to say 10%. Greenpeace: "Ghost gear makes up an estimated 10% of the plastic waste in our oceans, but represents a much higher proportion of large plastics found floating at the surface." https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blogs/8248/ghost-gear-the-abandoned-fishing-nets-haunting-our-oceans/ https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blogs/8248/ghost-gear-t...

unexaminedlife 7y ago

If it gets bad enough future generations will outlaw non-biodegradable products. So it's also in the best interest of producers to help in these matters. In fact, this is a little off topic, but there are 2 things that may coincide here. Exorbitant salaries of executives at most if not all of those same companies that play a huge role in the devastation should redirect that money to fixing some of the environmental issues their companies are exacerbating. If those companies aren't putting enough into offsetting the problems they're causing to the environment they shouldn't be paying their executives so much money. Redirect that money to the planet. I'd go so far to say financial companies may not play a huge role directly, but certainly play an enormous role indirectly. They should be paying that same penalty (re: executive salaries / profits) based on their portfolio of companies.

Aunche 7y ago

Rather than remove plastic from the ocean, wouldn't it be easier and better for the environment to just build landfills in developing countries.

bagacrap 7y ago
Yeah but you don't get invited on an international book tour for obvious ideas like that.
gizmo 7y ago
Contrary to public perception, landfills are the most environmentally friendly way to dispose of most types of garbage. The challenge is to get the garbage to the landfill.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  This also assumes that the landfill is properly prepared. An unlined pit leaching chemicals into underground wells isn't that great.

sharcerer 7y ago

Is banning plastic from packaging really beneficial or not? Came across this 2 days back. https://twitter.com/_HannahRitchie/status/1215212756678385664 https://twitter.com/_HannahRitchie/status/121521275667838566...

ourlordcaffeine 7y ago

The ocean cleanup device is absolutely terrible for floating marine life.

titzer 7y ago
Not as bad as the plastic.
mcv 7y ago
Is there evidence for that? I've seen people claim this, but I haven't seen any supporting evidence for it. The ocean is big. At the moment, the ocean cleanup is still small. I'd suggest investigating the impact, rather than claiming there is impact without evidence. If it turns out the cure (cleanup) is worse than the disease (plastic), then it makes sense to stop the ocean cleanup. Until then, let's continue and see what this will accomplish.
- ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
  It's been pointed out by experts in the field of floating marine life[1] [2]. Boyan has not been very co-operative with the scientists raising these concerns. The current impact is small, but they plan to have loads of these constantly operating - that will cause huge impact. [1] https://twitter.com/rebeccarhelm/status/1179861389575245824?lang=en https://twitter.com/rebeccarhelm/status/1179861389575245824?... [2] http://www.deepseanews.com/2019/02/the-ocean-cleanup-struggles-to-prove-it-will-not-harm-sea-life/ http://www.deepseanews.com/2019/02/the-ocean-cleanup-struggl...
  - mcv 7y ago
    I'm no expert on this issue, but it seems to me that the question here is not merely whether the ocean cleanup will harm marine life, but also whether not cleaning up the ocean will harm marine life. They're not there for something inconsequential, they're there to clean up the plastic, which many people assume is harmful for marine life. So the question isn't whether the cleanup is harmful, but whether it's more harmful than the alternatives, including not cleaning up. And since both parties point out how little we know about this, I would expect the answer to this question to be: we have no idea. So that's something that needs to be tested: how much of various kind of life is there before the cleanup, and how much is there after an area has been cleaned up? Until that is done, we can have no idea how big the impact will be, and in which direction that impact will be. Maybe neuston life will survive the cleanup. Maybe it will recover quickly. Maybe it won't. There might even be organisms that have adapted to the presence of plastic; what do we do with that? In any case, suggesting that cleaning up plastic from the oceans is going to be a disaster seems to me just as presumptuous as assuming that any particular method of cleaning is going to be totally perfect. It needs to be a process of discovery. Cooperation with the scientific community is absolutely vital. But doing nothing doesn't sound like a good option here.

remote_phone 7y ago

We need a law that bans all single use plastic. We should only allow one or two forms of plastic that are guaranteed recyclable and make everything else compostable.

egdod 7y ago
We, as in the United States? Or we, as in every country in the world but mostly the third world? The first one would be comparatively easy but would do almost no good. The second one would actually help, if it weren’t impossible, but it is.
- mcv 7y ago
  We, as in humanity, I'd assume. Of course that means we need laws in every country, or a binding international agreement or something. In any case, "we", as in "everybody", need to quit using non-degradable plastic wrappers and bags.
bagacrap 7y ago
I don't think we need a full ban. The problem is plastic is so damn effective and sooo damn cheap. And that countries in certain parts of the world basically dump straight into the ocean. If all the plastics just go to landfill, they're really not a problem. We have sufficient unused terra firma to store millennia worth of plastic. Space is not an issue, collection is. And that's pretty hard to solve in the long tail of developing nations.

philshem 7y ago

Here’s an interesting 2019 New Yorker article about Ocean Cleanup https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/04/a-grand-plan-to-clean-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/04/a-grand-plan-t...

gizmo 7y ago

Unfortunately the approaches taken by Ocean Cleanup make no sense. What Ocean Cleanup is doing isn't new, they're trying strategies that have previously been tried and found to be uneconomical/ineffective. This startup has received a lot of flak from experts for a reason: they're big on hype but haven't produced any results. Sending big diesel powered boats into the sea to collect a few thousand pounds of plastic is a joke. If the goal is to capture a gigantic amount of plastic cheaply, just place nets where polluted rivers in southeast Asia meet the sea. Those rivers carry all the plastic waste from the cities to the sea, so that's where the focus should be. But cleaning the rivers in poor parts of the world isn't a sexy hi-tech problem that results in TED talks. So Ocean Cleanup will continue to make more solar-powered autonomous boondoggles and they will accomplish nothing.

mikkelam 7y ago
...Which is why they built the interceptor which grabs plastic exactly at the source. As their CEO argues, you need to do both. Remove legacy ocean garbage and prevent newer garbage as well. https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/ https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/
- bagacrap 7y ago
  It would surprise me if nets at the mouths of rivers didn't royally screw up the wildlife and/or boat traffic. And what do they do with that plastic they trap? The root problem is those societies have no better way to dispose of plastic than letting it drift to sea. Proper waste collection and disposal services are far preferable to installing a net and telling everyone, "Yo it's ok to throw all your trash in the river now." This startup is long on hype and has zero results. Ok they spent tons of money to collect a few lbs of trash. The CEO was on Joe Rogan last month telling everyone he was going to clean up half the patch in 5 years (not even sure what that means since it's constantly growing). How much did those ships cost to run per day though? $50k. So he doesn't even have a working POC if you factor in costs. He's just out there on a premature victory tour, doing more harm than good by convincing people that someone else has solved the plastic problem for them. What a hero.

Steuard 7y ago

Last I heard, there were serious concerns that these cleanup devices would wind up absolutely devastating ocean ecosystems that naturally form in the same places that plastic piles up: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/ocean-cleanup-project-could-destroy-neuston/580693/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/ocean-cl... I got this link from a Twitter thread last fall: https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1179861389575245824 https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1179861389575245824 The Ocean Cleanup folks responded (there's a link in the thread), and the author who raised concerns responded in turn (also linked). To my eye, it seems like there are some pretty wide open scientific questions about the impacted ecosystems, and I'm not at all convinced that the Ocean Cleanup folks have demonstrated sufficient care about those uncertainties and concerns.

radicsge 7y ago
Since the plastic is breaking down (these patches would disappear without supply) and I guess you yourself also doesn't want to pollute the ocean with new plastic not sure why is this an issue. Or do you suggest to continue to pollute the ocean?

Reedx 7y ago

Cleanup is good, but are there efforts in identifying and cutting off the major inputs? That should be step 1 to have the biggest impact. As long as there are are literal dump trucks of trash being emptied straight into rivers... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeDY3I841q0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeDY3I841q0 ...it feels like we're spinning our wheels in almost comical fashion.

bagacrap 7y ago
Yes the same startup is trying to collect trash at the mouths of rivers. But even that is not far enough upstream. The problem must be tackled before the trash gets into the river. But how do you convince a developing country to invest in waste disposal infrastructure that has no economic benefit to them? Politics is much harder than tech. This startup might as well be funded by the petroleum industry. If they can convince the lay person that "we're on it" ie that someone else is solving the plastic issue, and individual consumers can go back to using as much plastic as they wish, it will be a terrific investment.

OscarCunningham 7y ago

These comments are full of arguments where one person suggests a course of action and another person replies that the alternatives are worse (plastic vs paper, wild fish vs farmed, cleaning up plastic vs cutting carbon). It's impossible for anyone to fully foresee the environmental consequences of the products they buy. This is the reason why the only solutions to these problems is for our governments to impose Pigovian taxes for harms to the environment (and equal subsidies for helps to the environment). Then all the consequences of our choices filter back to us in monetary terms. No other method is capable of weighing all the different factors.

aj7 7y ago

Meaningless without metrics such as energy cost per kg removed, etc. Do we have adequate means to reuse or dispose of the waste acquired? Does it have value that improves the metrics, or are there additional costs once the boat comes in? This technology is more useful once we have eliminated the waste SUPPLY, I suspect.

radicsge 7y ago
You are forgetting the damage that the plastic is doing for the wildlife / fishes. The plastic is breaking down to the size that is impossible to capture. This project is needed yesterday already.

_0ffh 7y ago

Boyan Slat was on the Joe Rogan Experience about a month ago. If you're interested in the topic, I recommend you watch (or listen to) it!

JetBen 7y ago

Already got the next assignment for this kid once he's done with this project - get rid of space junk. =)

mrtrombone 7y ago

This has been an interesting discussion but I am surprised at the high level of criticism towards the project. There seems to be two primary critiques of the project: 1. This should not be an area of focus - There are better climate change opportunities to put money towards 2. The project is ineffective and introduces a lot of other environmental problems For the first point it seems like people are arguing as if it is a binary problem. It isn’t - The threat of climate change / environmental damage is an incredibly complex one that will not be fixed by a single technology / focus/ policy change. For me the questions are a. ’Are existing plastics in our ocean a problem? (yes) b. If someone is passionate about this should they have a crack at improving things? (yes) This is not consuming all the worlds available financing for environmental action so I don’t think wasted resourcing is a particularly good argument. Several commentators also talk about focusing on other ‘lower’ hanging fruit but this is not an objective measure - For a team made up of excellent engineers, oceanographers, fluid dynamics experts etc this may be a lower hanging fruit than trying to implement large scale policy change. For the second point it comes down to the motivations of the team and their capacity and capability to improve the product. I would presume the team are incredibly passionate about improving the environment and so things like danger to floating marine life, use of diesel in boats etc would absolutely be something they are aware of and actively looking to mitigate. The fact this is (at least) the third iteration demonstrates they are working to improve on what they know is a currently flawed solution - This is development cycle! This is not to say that critique is bad. Hopefully the team are humble enough to absorb the critique and continue to iterate on their solution to resolve the real issues raised but as long as there is a continued focus on the goal of environmental cleanup and good governance surrounding this I think this is a fantastic project and hopefully it is joined by many more ambitious activities.

joe_the_user 7y ago
I would add that people have noted that the Pacific Garbage Patch is large and has a low density of plastic. I assume that ocean also has a relatively low density of fish altogether but industrial fishing is able to catch a pretty large proportion of these at this point (with beneficial and problem consequences). With plastic not trying to flee and fish moving, it doesn't seems a-priori impossible to create a device that would just skim a large portion of the plastic off. Of course, unless the world's nation change their policies, this will be moot and environmental destruction generally will accelerate given our present politics. But shitting on this particular project hardly seems a useful way to force this absolutely necessary general change.

trekrich 7y ago

Five Asian Countries Dump More Plastic Into Oceans Than Anyone Else Combined: How You Can Help https://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahleung/2018/04/21/five-asian-countries-dump-more-plastic-than-anyone-else-combined-how-you-can-help/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahleung/2018/04/21/five-asi... more focus needs to be placed here. Everyone can do their bit. But they need to do more.

newguy1234 7y ago
The same guy in the article is also making a device that cleans river water before it goes into the ocean. I think it is a good idea overall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZArQMFhQ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZArQMFhQ4
Polylactic_acid 7y ago
I think it might be useful for governments globally to try to tackle these international problems. We all suffer from plastic in the ocean so its in everyone's interest to stop it.

dang 7y ago

Url changed from https://www.ecowatch.com/ocean-cleaning-device-plastic-2640832397.html https://www.ecowatch.com/ocean-cleaning-device-plastic-26408..., which points to this.

popopje 7y ago

An interesting article re wildlife that lives at the ocean's surface and drifts around in the same way that plastic does and how this may affect it https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/ocean-cleanup-project-could-destroy-neuston/580693/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/ocean-cl... plus their response https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/the-ocean-cleanup-and-the-neuston/ https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/the-ocean-cleanup-and-th...

ggregoire 7y ago

They also built a solar-powered plastics interceptor boat to clean at the source. https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers

ykevinator 7y ago

This is great. Doers versus talkers,nice to see a doer get a win