Plastic pollution sucks

I caught the Great Plastic Garbage Patch (GPGP) mentioned on the radio this morning and was immediately transported back to 2020 when I reported on the work of non-profit organisation The Ocean Cleanup. A team of scientists developing and scaling technologies to eradicate the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world.

This week, it’s been reported that scientists studying the Great Pacific Garbage Patch have discovered that coastal species of shellfish and anemones are actually living and breeding in the rubbish - thousands of kilometres away from home.

The first time I wrote about GPGP was in Oct 2018 when “The Ocean Cleanup’s System 001’ - AKA Wilson - was first launched, from San Francisco Bay, travelling approx. 300 nautical miles offshore to an intermediary test site for a 2-week trial, before heading out to start the clean up 1200 miles offshore” and secondly in November 2020 to report on the team’s progress and the launch of their first product, fabricated entirely from the patch plastic, Ocean Clean Up Sunglasses - a revenue stream with 100% of proceeds going towards the clean up.

The GPGP is in the news again today because “US researchers who sampled rubbish from the northeastern Pacific between California and Hawaii reported to have found 37 kinds of invertebrates, originated from coastal areas, mostly from countries such as Japan on the other side of the ocean.” (Source: news.com.au)

If you check in with Ocean Cleanup you’ll find a video of the team offloading their net bulging with plastics (and that’s just the plastic you can see, never mind the micro plastics you can’t!) - it’s both heartbreaking (it’s just the tip of the plastics iceberg endangering marine wildlife) and inspiring (one more load eradicated from the ocean).

Ocean Cleanup are now planning improvements as they transition to System 003, but during 002’s lifetime, it collected a cumulative catch of 193,832 kg of plastic.

Now they know there’s marine wildlife in the system, the team are investigating mitigation improvements to maximise the net benefit to marine wildlife. Looking at improving exit routes for sharks and turtles, additional breathing areas and underwater cameras, AI-assisted detection of turtles, an active turtle exclusion mechanism and shark decoys to deter turtles from approaching.

To keep up to date with the Largest Clean Up In History visit theoceancleanup.com