Designed to target key points in global oceanic trash circulation, addressing a 7-million-ton problem planet-wide, this system has rapidly evolved from conceptual and inspiring idea in the mind of a teenager to feasibility-studied, fully-funded project set to go live next year.

Boyan Slat‘s approach is going to be set up near the coasts of Japan and South Korea, tackling one of the most major passageways for garbage currently known, using “an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms that could be dispatched to garbage patches around the world. Instead of moving through the ocean, the array would span the radius of a garbage patch, acting as a giant funnel. The angle of the booms would force plastic in the direction of the platforms, where it would be separated from plankton, filtered and stored for recycling.”

The initial array will span 2000 feet and be the longest floating structure built to date. One of the project primary targets will be the giant gyre known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – Slat’s organization, The Ocean Cleanup, believes this giant repository of waste could be cut in half within ten years. Some of the gathered trash will be recycled and other portions turned into biofuels.

Unlike other designs with similar but perhaps too bold of ambitions, this takes a surgeon’s scalpel to the problem, aiming to solve the largest areas first and with the least time and energy necessary. From from the project website: “The Ocean Cleanup develops technologies to extract, prevent, and intercept plastic pollution. The Ocean Cleanup’s goal is to fuel the world’s fight against oceanic plastic pollution, by initiating the largest cleanup in history. Instead of going after the plastic – which would take many thousands of years and billions of dollars to complete – The Ocean Cleanup uses long floating barriers to let the ocean currents concentrate the plastic itself. After having worked with a team of 100 volunteering scientists and engineers, a 2014 study confirmed the passive system is indeed likely a feasible and cost-effective method to remove half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 10 years’ time.”

The post Earth’s First Ocean Cleanup Array Set to Deploy in 2016 first appeared on Gajitz.

The Ocean Cleanup Project takes aim at the most dire accumulations of trash in the world’s waters: the huge floating ‘garbage islands’ where millions of pieces (and pounds) of non-biodegradable waste gather and swirl.

Unlike more expensive options, like actively dragging nets from ships, this low-cost solution would place floating structures and associated net systems at key places where garbage collects, and focus on the top few feet of water where most of it is found (and avoiding the entanglement of deeper sea life).

Developed by 20-year-old engineering student Boyan Slat, this solution is refreshingly pragmatic – rather than aim for the impossible (full cleanup would cost billions of dollars and take thousands of years), he has set his sights on making the most impact possible with a reasonable budget.

“The Ocean Cleanup estimates the cost of removing one kilogram of plastic at €4.53. This is 33 times cheaper than conventional ocean cleanup methods, while also being an estimated 7,900 times faster.”

Plastic finding its way into the realm of these arrays, each spanning tens of miles, would be pulled and sorted using the ocean’s own natural movements, then collected and removed in bulk by larger ships.

The post New System Sucks Plastic Out of Oceans 33 Times Cheaper first appeared on Gajitz.