The Revolutionary Giant Ocean Cleanup Machine is About to Set Sail

[Ohiogal]

And the 18-year-old who got it going.

"On a Wednesday afternoon in a sprawling lot on a former naval air station in Alameda, California, across the bay from San Francisco, workers are welding a massive black tube together. The tube–roughly the length of a football field–is one piece of a larger system that will set sail for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch this summer, where it will begin collecting some of the 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic trash brought there by ocean currents."

"Six years ago, the technology was only an idea presented at a TEDx talk. Boyan Slat, the 18-year-old presenter, had learned that cleaning up the tiny particles of plastic in the ocean could take nearly 80,000 years. Because of the volume of plastic spread through the water, and because it is constantly moving with currents, trying to chase it with nets would be a losing proposition. Slat instead proposed using that movement as an advantage: With a barrier in the water, he argued, the swirling plastic could be collected much more quickly. Then it could be pulled out of the water and recycled."

https://www.fastcompany.com/40560810/the-revolutionary-giant-ocean-cleanup-machine-is-about-to-set-sail

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Best of luck to this energetic intelligent young man!

[Sherman A1]

2. Superb!

I hope this works.

[NNadir]

3. It's an interesting idea, with some risks.

According to the link, the device itself is made from HDPE and the collecting nets are nylon. This, of course, presents a risk of break up.

Mixed plastics, which assuredly the gyres are, can represent some challenges if an effort is made to turn them directly into products.

Every time I personally reflect on plastic waste, I always have the same idea about how to do it, which is pyrolysis or reformation, since if one thinks that the hammer is the best tool ever, every problem is a nail.

Even if this inspiring young man - who is an early example of the generation which will be required to clean up the waste our generation has left - is on to something, the technology is not suitable for recapturing microplastics, assuming that the innate violence of the seas doesn't turn the device itself into microplastic, which is a risk, but hardly a certainty.

Microplastic, from my perspective, and only be addressed in cases where massive water filtration, perhaps in desalination schemes which will have a different set of environmental risks, where the salt is removed by exploiting the insolubility of most salts in supercritical water.

Every new technology initially generates huge enthusiasm as a thought experiment, but when put into practice, its risks become clear, especially when opponents utilize "Willie Horton" style selective attention generating propaganda to attack it.

I believe that the upside of plastic, definitely not now, but perhaps in a future more sensible than our present, is that it represents stable sequestered carbon.

It appears in the literature that shipping vessels, and to a smaller extent any and every ocean travelling vehicle with the exception of nuclear powered ships, which in any case are not in use commercially, generates a huge climate burden and air pollution burden.

Global assessment of shipping emissions in 2015 on a high spatial and temporal resolution (Johansson et al. Atmospheric Environment Volume 167, October 2017, Pages 403-415)

But I am very pleased to learn of this young man, of whom I'd not heard before. Because there is so much stupidity among the adults on the planet, if one has any hope for the future, it is with young men like these.

Thanks for the interesting and inspiring post.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Best wishes for this desperately needed enterprise. n/t

[hatrack]

5. Hope he's prepared to build entire fleets of them (assuming it works) . . .

Because that's what we're going to need.