Longest Floating Structure In History Sets Out To Clean The Ocean In 2016

[polly7]

May 29, 2015 by John Vibes

An ambitious new project is hoping to help clean the world's oceans with a trash collector that is reportedly the longest floating structure in recorded world history.

Back in 2013 we reported that a 19-year-old developed a plan to clean up the world’s oceans in just 5 years, removing 7,250,000 tons of plastic. However, last week, Boyan Slat (now 21), founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, announced that this awesome project will be deployed in 2016.

Slat’s invention consists of an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms that could be dispatched to garbage patches around the world. Working with the flow of nature, his solution to the problematic shifting of trash is to have the array span the radius of a garbage patch, acting as a giant funnel as the ocean moves through it. The angle of the booms would force plastic in the direction of the platforms, where it would be separated from smaller forms, such as plankton, and be filtered and stored for recycling. The issue of by-catches, killing life forms in the procedure of cleaning trash, can be virtually eliminated by using booms instead of nets and it will result in a larger areas covered. Because of trash’s density compared to larger sea animals, the use of booms will allow creatures to swim under the booms unaffected, reducing wildlife death substantially.

According to a press release published by the company:

The array is projected to be deployed in Q2 2016. The feasibility of deployment, off the coast of Tsushima, an island located in the waters between Japan and South-Korea is currently being researched. The system will span 2000 meters, thereby becoming the longest floating structure ever deployed in the ocean (beating the current record of 1000 m held by the Tokyo Mega-Float). It will be operational for at least two years, catching plastic pollution before it reaches the shores of the proposed deployment location of Tsushima island. Tsushima island is evaluating whether the plastic can be used as an alternative energy source.

http://www.trueactivist.com/longest-floating-structure-in-history-sets-out-to-clean-the-ocean-in-2016/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TrueActivist+%28True+Activist%29

[MADem]

1. Very cool--K/R! nt

[1monster]

2. There were a lot of naysayers when this young man first put his ideas out there.

I guess the proof will be in the pudding, as they say.

But at least he is trying, and his solution might just be the answer. And if not as successful as he hopes, it will probably be much more successful than doing nothing.

[polly7]

3. It just makes sense though, doesn't it?

I wish that somehow it could be used to clean whole oceans to save the marine life that ingest this garbage and suffer so much, but that's not very realistic. Hopefully even getting some of it away from the shores will help save at least those that feed closer to land.

D'oh. I just re-read the article and he does hope to clean whole oceans. Crossing my fingers, for sure.

[snagglepuss]

9. Unfortunately this is a cosmetic solution.

I was listening to one of the world's leading experts on the plastic in the ocean. He recounted how his team was in the middle of the Pacific and were catching fish. The first one he opened was small but it's stomach was filled with tiny plastic particles.

He explained that wave action quickly pulverizes plastic into these tiny particles which is why collection doesn't work and is rather dangerous because it creates false confidence that something is being done.

He says the the only solution is to prevent plastics from entering the ocean. Preventing plastics from finding their way into the ocean is absolutely critical.

[polly7]

10. Yes, that makes the most sense.

Stopping it though seems to me impossible. People/companies/whole countries just don't care. They dump and toss it - out of sight, out of mind. The illegal dumping in the ocean and even on the shores of poorer countries makes me livid. I've seen the most horrible pictures of marine life trapped in it, dead from it and, like you say, cut open revealing just a mass of garbage. Human beings are the stupidest animals on the planet when it comes to destroying what sustains us.

[daleanime]

4. If successful.....

we need hundreds of these.

[shebornik]

5. Every little bit helps

Now if someone can figure out how to stop the pollution in the first place, then the real clean-up can begin, including the thousands if not millions of tons of non floating human produced crap that we really don't even need.

[polly7]

6. +1,000,000 nt.

[silverweb]

12. You said it!

[BeanMusical]

7. Fascinating idea.

[MisterP]

8. it reminds me of the old joke about how mathematicians capture a lion

first, build a fence across half of Africa ...

[onethatcares]

11. what a great idea,

It would be really great if we could convince people to keep their trash in bags and get rid of it sanely but this is a beginning.