Discarded plastic that winds up in oceans traps marine animals, pollutes waters, breaks down into microplastics and can end up on the dinner plates of seafood lovers.
Maybe you heard the World Economic Forum’s dire prediction: There will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by weight by 2050. But one Netherlands-based nonprofit is working to “turn off the tap” by intercepting river plastic before it reaches the ocean and clean up 90% of floating plastic in the oceans by 2040.
The Ocean Cleanup is currently catching plastic in three plastic-polluting rivers globally and plans to expand to 15 rivers by the end of 2022, Lonneke Holierhoek, director of science and operations at The Ocean Cleanup, told FreightWaves. As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, The Ocean Cleanup has reportedly removed 1 million pounds of plastic from aquatic ecosystems.
The organization sent an ocean mission out to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) in the North Pacific Gyre in 2019 and plans to send another mission there later in 2021.
How does the organization collect ocean plastic?
The Ocean Cleanup System moves with the wind, waves and current, but it has a parachute sea anchor that slows its speed of movement compared to the speed of plastic. This allows the arc-shaped floating barrier to gather plastic over time. The barriers block floating debris from passing and have nets attached to prevent plastic from escaping below.
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