The world's first large-scale ocean cleanup system was launched from San Francisco over the weekend to a location offshore California where it will undergo testing before its deployment to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. If all goes according to plan, the system, developed by the Dutch non-profit The Ocean Cleanup, will be the first of approximately 60 systems focused on … [Read more...]
Seas of Plastic
By Jaquelyn Burton (Coeval, Inc.) Garbage is a problem. But, plastic is the real disaster - it is as valid on land as it is on the seas. In fact, a lot of the plastics in the seas came there by way of the cities and towns that are along the coastlines of the world. The trash that blows into the harbor and bays - that which comes from alongside the … [Read more...]
Biodegradable Plastics Don’t Work At Sea – Says New UN Study
"Don't discard 'Biodegradable' plastics at sea" asks a new report from the United Nations because biodegradable plastics don't disintegrate in the ocean. Complete degradation of biodegradable plastic occurs when none of the original polymer remains, a process involving microbial action (i.e. it is broken down to carbon dioxide, methane and water) but this process … [Read more...]
Researchers Complete Pacific Garbage Patch Recon Ahead of Proposed Cleanup
By Emmett Berg SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Researchers returned on Sunday from mapping and sampling a massive swirling cluster of trash floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, as the Dutch-borne crew works to refine a clean-up strategy it will roll out globally. The crew of the Ocean Cleanup, backed by volunteers in sailboats, ventured to areas of the … [Read more...]
Can This Ocean Array Rid The World’s Oceans of Harmful Plastics?
We first heard about this concept back in late 2012 when a first year aerospace engineering student named Boyan Slat gave a TED talk about how the so-called "Great Pacific Garbage patch", and all of the world's oceans for that matter, can essentially clean themselves of harmful plastics. (See: Can The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Clean Itself?) Now, 19-year-old Slat is back … [Read more...]