Plastics like these bottles are targeted for cleanup by the Ocean Cleanup's garbage collection machine, which launched as a test on Saturday, September 8, 2018.
Floating trash collector has setback in Pacific Garbage Patch
The Ocean Cleanup’s nearly 2,000-foot boom is collecting ocean plastics from the gigantic garbage gyre over the next year. But it has hit a snag.
The 2,000-foot boom, known as Wilson, is the creation of Boyan Slat, the Dutch entrepreneur who launched it last September for a year-long series of tests. “We are of course quite bummed about this,” Slat tweeted. “At the same time, we also realize that setbacks like this are inevitable when pioneering new technology at a rapid pace.” He described the setback as “teething troubles” that are “solvable.” He also vowed that ”the cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be operational in 2019.”
The campaign to rid the world’s oceans of plastic trash marked a turning point last September as a giant, floating trash-collector steamed out of San Francisco on a mission to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Over the course of the next year, the device will undergo the ultimate tests and face some tough questions: Can technology prevail over nature? Did the engineers at The Ocean Cleanup in the Netherlands invent the first feasible method for extracting large amounts of plastic debris from the sea? Or will the wilds of the open Pacific tear it to shreds, turning the cleaner itself into plastic trash? Alternately, even if a Pacific storm does not devour the device,
