20,000 Pounds of Trash Removed From Pacific Garbage Patch: ‘Holy mother of god. It worked!’
“The Great Pacific Garbage Patch can now be cleaned,” announced Dutch entrepreneur Boyan Slat, the wonderkid inventor who’s spent a decade inventing systems for waterborne litter collection.
Recent tests on his Ocean Cleanup rig called System 002, invented to tackle the 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic pollution, were a success, leading Slat to predict that most of the oceanic garbage patches could be removed by 2040.
Intersections of ocean currents have created the massive floating islands of plastic trash—five slow-moving whirlpools that pull litter from thousands of miles away into a single radius.
ht/ Uncle Al
It’s a drop in the bucket so far, but it has come a long way from his original design. Like most innovations it had a long process to go through. Hope it is successful!
This invention could likely result in billions of pounds of plastic, currently peacefully co-existing in the Pacific Ocean, becoming endangered. This young man should be arrested and then investigated, and the UN should force the United States and the EU to pay trillions of dollars to dictators of third world nations. Australia must also continue its lockdowns pending an investigation on the potential scarcity of plastic waste.
Private sector solves a problem. You know the government is going to step in and turn it into a tax eating hell hole.
Great!
So now every one of the empty freighters heading back to china should be required to collect garbage using this device during their return trip.
That’s truly carbon neutral!
Left Coast Dan — The linked article reported that it is successful! I remember reading about this, well, probably ten years ago and thinking what an elegant solution it was.
Rather than scornfully shout from a podium about “How Dare” we, this young man saw a pollution problem, worked out a solution, acted on it with determination, and persuaded others of his vision. That’s a wonderful example of a leader. Way to go!
I’m glad he was successful with his project before some country’s gov’t took it over and assigned it to a committee.
Democrats will find something wrong with it.
The collected trash will probably be sent to China for processing, whereupon the Chinese will promptly throw all the unusable bits into the Yangtse river, where it will flow right back into the Pacific, along with all the rest of their trash.
The geniuses of Scorpion solved this years ago.
I saw it on CBS.
I sure hope this new system collects covid masks as well…
“1.8 trillion pieces of plastic pollution”
OK, who counted them?
They can count plastic in the seas but the US can’t count votes.
If there was profit involved we would have had this crap cleaned up decades ago.
OK, now do the swamp, DC.
This system is racist.
Great effort, but let’s be honest, those boats are using tons of diesel fuel.
Not that I care, but I fail to see how it can be carbon neutral any more than Al Gore sez he’s carbon Neutral!
The majority of plastic pollution in the oceans come from 10 rivers, NONE of which are in the USA. I repeat; NONE
“80% of the world’s ocean plastics enter the ocean via rivers and coastlines. The other 20% come from marine sources such as fishing nets, ropes, and fleets.” https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics
Once again the 1st world is solving 3rd world problems!
Good on him. Now, what will be done with the trash once it is safely on shore?
I love it when free enterprise solves a problem without Gooberment “assistance” (or hinderance).
Great! Now let’s turn him loose on the garbage in D.C.
The Communist Chinese are the WORST polluters of the planet.
*Air pollution
*Water pollution
*Plastic pollution
The entire country is a festering pestilent Shithole
The Black Plague came from Chinese rats.
Their so called”culture” is a backwards, racist, misogynistic, hegemonic worldview
Good job for the young man! Now we know what fishing trawlers and purse seiners can do in the off season. A whole lot more than 10 of them available.
As an eco/sociological fix, if we could just convince the Asians that this is a powerful aphrodisiac, more so than rhino horn, it could cleanup the mess, get it back to it’s country of origin, and give rhinos a breather.
Now if people will stop dumping barges full of trash into the oceans things will hopefully improve.
I say we get a big rocket full of used plastic bottles, democrats, and rinos and set the controls for the heart of the sun.