The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit known for its efforts to clean the oceans of our trash, is now tackling the North Pacific trash vortex, a huge mass of trash located in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California. For more efficiency, the recovery system will be “boosted” by a propulsion system.
In 2013, Boyan Slat (eighteen at the time) gave up his studies in aeronautical engineering to launch a project called “The Ocean Cleanup”. The principle: deploy nets 600 meters long in the shape of a “U” over three meters deep in order to collect as much human waste as possible in the oceans. Once the containers are full, the plastics are then processed for recycling.
For the past week, the device has focused on the North Pacific garbage vortex (Great Pacific Garbage Patch, GPGP). Under the effect of the earth’s rotation, sea currents form ocean gyres. These huge vortices, which rotate clockwise in the northern hemisphere, then tend to trap plastic waste inside. The GPGP, at least three times the size of France, is one of these gyres.
A propulsion system
Since its development in 2013, theOcean Cleanup Project has benefited from numerous adjustments. Originally, the idea was to anchor a massive U-shaped floating barrier capable of taking advantage of ocean currents, waves and wind to create a speed differential with plastic waste, allowing it to be picked up.
However, testing of this approach in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch showed that the design was not very effective. The system was struggling to maintain the speeds needed to pick up the waste.
Recently, researchers added a huge parachute aimed at slowing down the barrier to maintain a constant speed. Eventually, the team has now abandoned the idea of a passive system in favor of a powered system. Concretely, a vessel with crew is now placed at each end of the U-shaped barrier (800 meters long) in order to tow it through the water at a constant speed of 1.5 knots (about 2.78 km / h). The other advantage of this approach is that the system can be directed to areas with a high concentration of waste.
Called Jenny, this design is described as the Ocean Cleanup Project’s first full-scale system. She will undergo more than 70 separate tests inside this vortex of garbage over the next sixty weeks. Through these tests, the team plans not only to validate the design’s effectiveness, but also to demonstrate its limited environmental impact. Ultimately, The Ocean Cleanup aspires to reduce by 90% floating plastics in the oceans by 2040.
Finally, remember that the organization also has several boats capable of tackling pollution problems further upstream, directly in rivers.
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