The largest ocean clean up effort to date has hit a snag

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The problem

System 001 consists of a 600-meter (almost 2,000-foot) long floater, with a 3-meter (10-foot) deep skirt attached below. The floater is designed to prevent plastics from flowing over the system, while the skirt stops smaller particles from escaping underneath. The setup takes advantage of natural oceanic forces to catch and concentrate the plastic.

But apart from 2 metric tons of discarded “ghost nets,“ no significant amount of plastic has been extracted from System 001 yet, group leaders say. Plastic enters the system, but is only retained for a few days, which is not long enough to harvest it and keep going. This problem came to light in mid-November, and The Ocean Cleanup’s engineering and technology teams have been working to identify the cause and a solution.

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The most-likely reason is that the system is not moving quickly enough at every occurring condition,” Holierhoek says. “It needs to move faster than the plastic at all times so as to retain all plastic it’s caught.” The skirt is meant to create a downward flow to allow marine life to safely pass underneath it. ”It is great that no negative impact on sea life has been observed so far,” she said. “And this is of course also a prerequisite for what we consider a successful design.”

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