'Ocean Cleanup' Removes First 100,000 kg of Plastic From the Great Pacific Garbage Patch 106
The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit trying to rid the world's oceans of plastic, announced that it's "officially removed more than 100,000 kg of plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP)." The impressive milestone is almost 4x as much garbage it announced it removed last October. CEO Boyan Slat writes in a press release: Since deployment in August 2021, System 002 (or "Jenny") has now collected 101,353 kg of plastic over 45 extractions, sweeping an area of ocean of over 3000km2 -- comparable to the size of Luxembourg or Rhode Island. Added to the 7,173 kg of plastic captured by our previous prototype systems, The Ocean Cleanup has now collected 108,526 kg of plastic from the GPGP -- more than the combined weight of two and a half Boeing 737-800s, or the dry weight of a space shuttle!
According to our 2018 study in which we mapped the patch, the total amount of accumulated plastic is 79,000,000 kg, or 100,000,000 kg if we include the Outer GPGP. Thus, if we repeat this 100,000 kg haul 1,000 times -- the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be gone.
I'm proud of The Ocean Cleanup team for crossing this milestone, which is all the more remarkable considering System 002 is still an experimental system. Now our technology is validated, we are ready to move on to our new and expanded System 03, which is expected to capture plastic at a rate potentially 10 times higher than System 002 through a combination of increased size, improved efficiency, and increased uptime. Our transition to System 03 is starting soon.
According to our 2018 study in which we mapped the patch, the total amount of accumulated plastic is 79,000,000 kg, or 100,000,000 kg if we include the Outer GPGP. Thus, if we repeat this 100,000 kg haul 1,000 times -- the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be gone.
I'm proud of The Ocean Cleanup team for crossing this milestone, which is all the more remarkable considering System 002 is still an experimental system. Now our technology is validated, we are ready to move on to our new and expanded System 03, which is expected to capture plastic at a rate potentially 10 times higher than System 002 through a combination of increased size, improved efficiency, and increased uptime. Our transition to System 03 is starting soon.
Did the influx stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
> if we repeat this 100,000 kg haul 1,000 times -- the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be gone
Sure as long as no more gets added.
Re: Did the influx stop? (Score:3)
I suppose a logical question is therefore whether they can eventually deploy enough 03's (or future versions) to clean up the GPGP faster than it can accumulate.
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I suppose a logical question is therefore whether they can eventually deploy enough 03's (or future versions) to clean up the GPGP faster than it can accumulate.
They can help with the keep-up task by performing nuclear strikes on the sources of the garbage.
Re: Did the influx stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a thousand times cheaper to clean up the trash at the source than to send ships out into the middle of the Pacific.
They removed 100 tonnes of trash. At the source, they could have paid a guy with a rake $1 per hour to do that in a week.
This is what the plastic trash looks like at the source [weforum.org].
This is what the garbage patch in the middle of the Pacific looks like [surfertoday.com]
Which looks like a more productive place to collect plastic trash?
Re: Did the influx stop? (Score:5, Informative)
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I still wonder if they're missing a potential source of funding. Plastics in seawater slowly chelate metals (alongside many organic compounds), concentrating them. This is normally considered a problem, as it makes drifting plastic more toxic to sea life than fresh plastic. But chelation in plastics can generally be reversed relatively trivially with a sulfuric acid bath - and some of these metals are valuable. To the point that a number of research projects have *deliberately* left plastics in the ocean
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Maybe this will be how we solve the EV battery question.
Re: Did the influx stop? (Score:4, Insightful)
But... The trash is no longer at the source... Its in the middle of the ocean!
Sure, it is a thousand times cheaper to prevent the patch from coming into existence by catching the trash at the source. But that ship has sailed. Now we need to do both.
Also not all trash is so "nicely" concentrated as your picture wants to imply.
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Now we need to do both.
No, we don't. If X and Y solve the same problem, X is a thousand times more effective than Y, and you have limited resources, you do ONLY X until it is 99.9% done.
Re: Did the influx stop? (Score:2)
I'm not following - the GPGP is already there, so if you cut off the source that's great, but you still have a bunch of trash in the pacific. I think that's the point - both things need to happen: clean up the mess and stop the source. If you have a burst pipe in your basement, you need to both cut off the water supply and clean up the water that already there.
I agree that cutting off supply is cheaper (and should happen), but I suspect that requires a lot of cooperation and coordination that is probably po
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X (plastic patch) and Y (ocean plastic source) are not the same problem.
Y is the source of X. So Y, having created X, makes X worse continuously. Solving Y only stops X from getting worse.
X still is there, as it has already been created and supersized over the years...
In a normal sentence: Stopping the outflow of garbage from the continents will not make the patch magically disappear.
If you can't do both, yes, stopping the outflow is the minimal way to go. But right now we can do both.
And collecting the ga
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Stopping the outflow of garbage from the continents will not make the patch magically disappear.
Yes, it does. The plastic eventually breaks down. Much of the plastic in the "garbage patch" is already broken down into microparticles. They degrade due to UV and from bacteria.
Cutting off the source (eventually) solves the problem.
Pulling trash from the ocean while dumping far more solves nothing.
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Plastic microparticles concentrate pollutants and they get ingested by marine biota. Pulling trash from the ocean solves that problem.
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The garbage patch is in international waters. Are you suggesting invading sovereign lands for trash removal? It's not as simple as that, I don't think.
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They can help with the keep-up task by performing nuclear strikes on the sources of the garbage.
It may be more effective, less environmentally damaging, & less morally questionable to just stop subsidising & legally/politically protecting the fossil fuel industry, which produces all the plastic.
Re:Did the influx stop? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Did the influx stop? (Score:4, Interesting)
On a cynical scale that's a 10/10.
Nah. A true cynic would have also pointed out the 100 tonnes of sulfur-laden bunker fuel burned to power the ship that gathered 100 tonnes of plastic.
Re:Did the influx stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
At one point in a distant, glorious past, Slashdot was a site of news for nerds and stuff that mattered.
Nowadays it's a site of old, cynical assholes. Doesn't matter it the topic is blockchain, AI or ocean cleanup. More than half of the posters will not be curious about the science, not perform any research, not read the article, and instead just take a big, huge dump containing the essence of their highly unqualified opinion on top of the topic, and move on to take the next shit.
Re:Did the influx stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
At one point in a distant, glorious past, Slashdot was a site of news for nerds and stuff that mattered.
Nowadays it's a site of old, cynical assholes. Doesn't matter it the topic is blockchain, AI or ocean cleanup. More than half of the posters will not be curious about the science, not perform any research, not read the article, and instead just take a big, huge dump containing the essence of their highly unqualified opinion on top of the topic, and move on to take the next shit.
Well, what do you expect? In 1998 I, and probably a lot of the other Slashdot readership were enthusiastic nerds barely old enough to drink. Now, I'm in my 40s, and quickly becoming a grumpy, cynical nerd instead... Nerds like to learn about the world around them, and, sadly, the more you learn about what goes on in the world these days, the more cynical you get.
Re: Did the influx stop? (Score:2)
I feel seen. Logged in for my first comment on maybe a decade just to say so.
I think one personâ(TM)s cynicism is another personâ(TM)s attempt to ensure limited resources are allocated in such a way that actually fixes the problem. Performative actions feel great, and Iâ(TM)m excited that these guys are producing these wonderful robots aimed at this horrible problem. The problem, as I see it, is that itâ(TM)s way harder to remove plastics from the middle of the ocean, and it actually
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I think the main reason why there are so many cynics is that it's a quick way to appear smart and superior without having to actually invest any effort by properly engaging with the subject.
You don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
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This seems like a really nice story to me. Those people are doing their best to help everyone, but I knew there would be negative comments because its Slashdot.
My son joined a group that picks up rubbish from a stretch of coast near our house, and they occasionally cop abuse from passersby.
Re:You don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is also a specific issue with anything environmental or green, in that certain media outlets have primed people to assume that any and all of it is just an excuse to rob them. It's all scams to get their money, and that is the thought that immediately enters their head when they hear about one.
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There is also a specific issue with anything environmental or green, in that certain media outlets have primed people to assume that any and all of it is just an excuse to rob them. It's all scams to get their money, and that is the thought that immediately enters their head when they hear about one.
We've been burned before [washingtonpost.com]. Solyndra isn't the only offender either. The lifestyle hypocrisy from people like Al Gore [investors.com] also hurts the credibility of climate "activists".
To get real results for cleaner air and water, the scam artists who sell carbon offsets need to be exposed and removed. Once that is done and the ridiculous doomsday predictions end, the process of regaining credibility can begin.
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We've been burned before. Solyndra isn't the only offender either.
I personally think Solyndra was a scam, but the program that they got funding from was profitable as a whole for The People even when they are taken into account, so bitching about that is stupid. Don't be stupid.
The lifestyle hypocrisy from people like Al Gore also hurts the credibility of climate "activists".
Al Gore doesn't have a private jet. He has chartered them on occasion, but he also takes public flights. It's not clear how he's supposed to get places without air travel. Do you suppose he should sail everywhere, so he can be at a continual disadvantage?
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I personally think Solyndra was a scam, but the program that they got funding from was profitable as a whole for The People even when they are taken into account, so bitching about that is stupid. Don't be stupid.
Solyndra was a scam and needs to be remembered. It would be dumb to ignore that. Don't be dumb...
Solyndra isn't the only eco-scam either.
Al Gore doesn't have a private jet. He has chartered them on occasion, but he also takes public flights. It's not clear how he's supposed to get places without air travel. Do you suppose he should sail everywhere, so he can be at a continual disadvantage?
Again, he is an example of the hypocrisy of rich climate activists. Al Gore doesn't need an enormous house that wastes more energy than one household should consume. Then you have the remaining fools who do fly around on private jets telling us to lower our carbon footprint. When normal people see that crap, they turn into skeptics. I want cleaner air and water, so I say
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I personally think Solyndra was a scam,
Solyndra was a scam and needs to be remembered. It would be dumb to ignore that. Don't be dumb...
Hello? Is this thing on? You complete fucking incompetent.
Re: You don't get it. (Score:1)
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I personally think Solyndra was a scam,
Solyndra was a scam and needs to be remembered. It would be dumb to ignore that. Don't be dumb...
Hello? Is this thing on? You complete fucking incompetent.
Calm down little buddy, I was replying to your silly comment:
I personally think Solyndra was a scam, but the program that they got funding from was profitable as a whole for The People even when they are taken into account, so bitching about that is stupid.
I refuted that statement by saying that it needs to be remembered. You said we need to stop bitching about it, and I disagreed. Your personal opinion of the matter was inconsequential to my reply.
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What size house is acceptable for people more valuable than you?
Maybe he shouldn't pop off about sustainability and personal responsibility when his house consumes 34 times the energy of the average house [wivb.com]. He loses credibility with stupid crap like this. If he wouldn't shame others, I wouldn't give a damn about his home size or utility usage. We can talk about Bill Gates hypocrisy next if you're interested.
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I refuted that statement by saying that it needs to be remembered.
You refuted nothing. That's not what that word means, noob.
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Re:You don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Weirdly there are people who are anti-recycling.
I am not anti-recycling when it makes sense, but it often doesn't. Recycling aluminum, steel, and cardboard makes sense. Recycling glass, other paper, and most plastic usually does not make sense. More resources are consumed than saved.
But the biggest problem is that people who drive 4-ton SUVs think they are "doing their part" for the environment by driving 20 miles to the recycling center with 100 grams of plastic grocery bags. Even when recycling makes sense, it makes so little difference that it is mostly a diversion from higher priorities.
It is far better to advocate not using so much crap in the first place. I don't buy anything in disposable plastic bottles. I don't eat at fast food restaurants. I refuse to use plastic utensils. I drive an EV. I have solar panels on my roof. And I recycle when it makes sense.
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Plastic could actually be recycled effectively, for example using solar powered thermal de-polymerization resulting in a hydrocarbon mix that can be used as feed stock for a refinery.
Unfortunately it's a bit more profitable to swear blind you'll recycle responsively, collect your fee and then ship it to a landfill in the 3rd world. And there's little enforcement or repercussions should authorities accidentally trip over solid evidence of wrong-doing.
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Plastic could actually be recycled effectively
Perhaps. But the relevant point is that it isn't.
Saying you "Support recycling" means you support it as it works now or is likely to work in the near future, not how you wish it would work in an alternative reality.
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I simply indicated that it CAN be recycled and then pointed out a reason why it isn't being done. I never used the word Support nor did I argue against OPs point.
One of the more interesting approaches (at least for soda bottles and similar) is a rig that re-forms it into filament suitable for 3D printing. It's just in the garage/hobiest stage but it's interesting.
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We should outright ban any use of plastics which cannot be conveniently recycled except for necessary use. Nobody should be able to use the excuse that it's slightly more profitable to shit all over the biosphere.
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We should outright ban any use of plastics which cannot be conveniently recycled
That accomplishes little because the Western countries that might be willing to impose such a ban are not where oceanic trash is coming from.
China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and India are not going to ban plastics.
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It is far better to advocate not using so much crap in the first place.
It is, but it's also difficult to do that... Most people who "recycle" do it as a form of virtue signalling rather than anything practical.
I don't buy anything in disposable plastic bottles. /quote
Sadly lots of things are *only* available in disposable plastic bottles. A lot of packaging is totally excessive and wasteful, and companies see the primary purpose of packaging as being advertising rather than as a container to protect the product in transit.
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Because plastic recycling is a scam basically.
That doesn't mean we should just dump bottles and packaging in the river obviously, or try to clean up the existing mess.
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Because of the scam that is recycling it's much better to just throw plastic away if you happen to know that it will end up in a landfill, despite the looks you'll get when you throw it in the garbage bin and not the recycle one. Probably better to throw it away even if you aren't sure it will go to a landfill. There's at least a chance it won't end up in a 3rd world country, with all the carbon use that entails in getting it there.
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We survived fine for 1000's of years without plastics to move goods around. We can do it again.
I don't disagree with your overall comments but this sentence is ridiculous. We survied without electricty, AC, cars, etc for 1000's of years. I don't want that to be our benchmark.
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I was trying to figure out how commerce would be carried out in a possible future where single-use plastics are not used. (i.e. society has finally decided that the "cost" of single use plastics is high enough to do something else, even if it costs more.)
One idea I had, was where basically everything at the supermarket is sold from dispensers, and everyone has a set of standardized stainless steel containers in standard sizes with sealable lids and RFID/laser etched bar codes. You'd take your 500mL contai
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I'm relying on Mother Nature to solve that "microplastics" problem for us. Something is going to evolve to eat that stuff, or use it to build homes or shells, or some such. Remember, you read that prophesy here!
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Eventually, yes, but maybe not soon enough to do us much good.
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I would think some effective source collection efforts would be considerably more economical and effective. Was on a beach last month and the number of styrofoam "beans" that wash up each day was just sad. (Big blocks of styrofoam break apart into the individual beans.)
Re:Did the influx stop? (Score:4, Informative)
I would think some effective source collection efforts would be considerably more economical and effective.
There's a techie project for that as well. https://theoceancleanup.com/ri... [theoceancleanup.com]
Re: Did the influx stop? (Score:1)
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I thought it wouldn't be an issue since it presumably took over 50 years for that patch to form, but actually, the numbers are pretty bad...
According to the summary there's 100,000,000kg of garbage in the patch.
that's +2,000,000kg per year, assuming it took 50 years to build up
so 20x 100,000kg hauls per year to keep up
So... yeah. I don't know what their turnaround time is but seems like 2 hauls per month just to keep up with new garbage might be a problem actually at least at this point.
This needs to be sca
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It's really not true anyway, because it's big, it's moving around, and every time you pass through it you only get a percentage of what's in the region you pass through.
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Yes, what is the rate at which the garbage patch is growing? Would removing 100,000kg even reach break even, or just slow the growth?
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Like any problem in life, solutions are multiple.
We can and should do more to reduce ocean pollution.
Regardless of that, we still need to clean up what's there. The fact that these folks are figuring out how to do it and actually doing it is just damn impressive.
They're even doing things like trying to intercept things at rivers before they make it to the ocean.
Yes, it would be nice if we stopped polluting. But as long as we do, we'd better clean it up.
Personal example. It pisses me off to no end that kids
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I agree. Its still okay to call out bullshit like 'just 1000 trips and we're all done!" - not even close.
Good luck to them. (Score:5, Interesting)
But what is really needed is to get nations to stop dumping their trash into the oceans. China and Viet Nam ( surprisingly ) were shown to have done the vast majority of the ocean pollution. Rather than keeping cleaning up, we need to get ALL nations to stop dumping.
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China and Viet Nam ( surprisingly ) were shown to have done the vast majority of the ocean pollution.
40% of the trash in the Pacific enters from a single river: The Changjiang (Yangtze River) in China. 400 million people live in the Changjiang watershed.
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Where does the plastic come from though? A lot of it is western waste that was exported to be "recycled", but got dumped instead.
China passed a law in 2020 aimed at cleaning that river up. Among other things it bans all dumping, chemical plants within 1km of it, and the use of highly polluting watercraft.
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Where does the plastic come from though? A lot of it is western waste that was exported to be "recycled", but got dumped instead.
I went to Kauai a few years ago, and 99% of the plastic trash on the beach with identifiable writing was from Asia.
China passed a law in 2020 aimed at cleaning that river up. Among other things it bans all dumping, chemical plants within 1km of it, and the use of highly polluting watercraft.
China has very few dissidents. Instead of protesting laws, they just ignore them.
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It is far easier to clean up ocean surface, than it is to clean the volume and bottom.
But what is really needed is to get nations to stop dumping their trash into the oceans. China and Viet Nam ( surprisingly ) were shown to have done the vast majority of the ocean pollution. Rather than keeping cleaning up, we need to get ALL nations to stop dumping.
Agreed -- removing what's there is only half the problem, but good on Slat and his team for *doing something* about GPGP. It's on all of us to manage our use and disposal of plastics. As with almost everything else, there are tremendous benefits and equally horrendous consequences to plastics.
Re: Good luck to them. (Score:2)
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nice but a drop in the ocean really (Score:3)
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Geoengineering (Score:1)
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this might give you some idea of the scale of the problem. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/... [noaa.gov]. That article talks about 8 million tons entering the ocean in just a si
At what cost to marine life? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Didnâ(TM)t this also kill huge amounts of marine life which was living in and amongst the patch?
No. The collection net only skims the top 10 feet (3 metres) of the ocean to collect the plastics near the surface. Sometimes they catch dying turtles that are wrapped up in ghost nets, but they either try to cut them loose, or, if they catch live sea life, they release the entire collection net rather than bring it onboard. It means that some trash gets lost, but they figure they can finding the trash again is better than killing marine animals.
A Sisyphean task (Score:2)
It's so easy to look at that number as such a tiny fraction... and to scoff at "It'll be gone if we do this 1000 times!", knowing that more and more is getting added every day. It's so easy to despair at all of this when it seems most of the world is willing to make things worse to save even a penny off their bottom line.
But hey, these people did a thing and the world is a better place for it. Got to give them props for that, even if it doesn't feel like much.
Every time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time there's an article about this guy Boyan Slat, and his decade old effort to *do something*, I already know what the comments section is going to look like
1. But what about influx from China and Vietnam?!?!
2. 100 tons? Meh. That's nothing.
3. Better do X
And if not all, large majority of those writing that never actually did anything even close to what this guy is doing, and improving on it every year. Aren't you ashamed you armchair smart asses, criticizing somebody actually trying to do something positive? Even collecting trash on the beach with a stick is better than doing nothing and bullshitting on the internet about people that do. If you're not ashamed, you should be, and I know how extremely egotistical tech people can be, so I'm sure you won't be, but will find another reason why you're right and smart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Jre Clips - How it Felt for Boyan Slat to See People Cheer His Failure
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I checked out their site and it seems they are using actual ships with actual people manning them to do the cleanups.
I wonder if they can use automated ships with less men or totally automated to do this round the clock at all the garbage patch areas. May be more feasible nowadays with all the research on automated cargo ships, etc. Some even solar powered / other forms of green propulsion (yes I know sails are also green).
If they can do something like that, running costs will be lesser and even if junk sti
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Let's do maths (plus logic) (Score:2)
ASSUMPTIONS
A - There's no more GPGP influx
B - They keep working as efficient
(they collected 4x what was expected)
INPUT
C - The started total was 100 MT (million of tons)
D - They removed 0.1 MT/year (0.1MT=100 tons)
MATHS
Years to finish = C/D = 100/0.1 = 1.000 year = A MILLENIUM with no more GPGP influx and being as efficient as they were this year...
Good luck...
Let's follow links Re:Let's do maths (plus logic) (Score:2)
You should follow the link "is starting soon" at the end.
To simplify the math and save you the need:
- Next gen is expected to be 10 times as efficient.
- They want a fleet of 10 such systems.
Once this is available, it's 10 years to clean the patch if it doesn't grow. If it does grow, it will take longer, but unless it grows at more than 50MT a year, that would certainly seem tractable. Even if it does, a few more systems should solve the problem.
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Wake me when "expected" becomes "accomplished."
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You need to account for density and insolation too.
IIRC the density is 1g per m3 of seawater. Sunlight breaks that down faster than 1000 years.
So there will be a convergent point.
It would be great if dipshits stopped throwing trash in the sea.
Garbage-Powered Cleanup, Plus Toys (Score:1)
Let's do some math (Score:1)
.03 grams per square meter (100K kilograms over 3K square kilometers) collected.
Either the collector is *very* efficient, or the garbage is *very* clumpy and they were able to efficiently find and harvest the clumps. A related question is the cost (including energy cost) of making and operating the collector (For making, assume mass-production cost, not the one-off cost of the prototype). Does the benefit exceed the cost?
I think the efficiency will go down (perhaps rapidly) if this process is scaled up.
And only... (Score:2)
And only 100,000 kg of CO_2 were released into the atmosphere in accomplishing this.
Polluter (Score:3)