The organization announced this on Monday in Rotterdam. “The Ocean Cleanup” has been collecting plastic from the Pacific for about five years using huge fishing nets and recently also using barriers from particularly heavily polluted rivers in eight countries to prevent the garbage from reaching the oceans. “Although we still have a long way to go, recent successes give us renewed confidence that the oceans can be cleaned up,” said the project’s initiator, Dutchman Boyan Slat. But millions of tons of plastic waste still pollute the world’s oceans.
“The Ocean Cleanup” wants to continue improving to solve this “global catastrophe”. The organization also referred to the fourth round of negotiations on a UN plastics agreement, which begins on Tuesday. “The Ocean Cleanup” will advocate for a comprehensive and ambitious global agreement that addresses plastic in all phases of its life cycle.
More plastic catchers planned
The “The Ocean Cleanup” project was founded in 2013 and fished the first plastic waste out of the Pacific in 2019. More plastic catchers are to be stationed in rivers this year.
“The Ocean Cleanup” is now stationed with the third revised system in the Pacific at the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch. According to scientific estimates, 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic collect in this vortex. The garbage catcher is an 800 meter long net structure that is slowly pulled through the water in a U-shape by two tugboats. The collected waste is loaded onto ships and recycled on land.
There were many failures in the development of the project, which is supported by companies and universities. There is also criticism of the effectiveness and sustainability of the system. Experts also feared that marine life would be collected – a warning that “The Ocean Cleanup” says is based on false assumptions.
