The Ocean Cleanup is an environmental engineering organization that has been designing cutting edge technology for cleaning up the planet’s oceans. Led by 24-year old CEO Boyan Slat, the company has ambitiously focused its efforts on cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of plastic and garbage covering 1.6 million km between Hawaii and California. It is the largest collection of ocean garbage in the world. The Ocean Cleanup is in the process of scaling up their prototype system in the North Sea to prepare it for use in the Pacific Ocean. Once perfected, the system will have the ability to collect trash from the ocean surface and a few feet under water, where garbage ships can come along and pick it up (check out the system in the picture below). At full capacity, the system will be able to remove 50% of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch every five years. The website contains information and videos that are extremely helpful in understanding the technological development process and current stage that the company is at in getting the system fully operational. The cool thing about the website is that with the technology it displays being so revolutionary, the site truly allows you to see history unfolding before your eyes! You become a spectator of how an innovative group of people is making an impact in restoring our planet’s oceans closer to their natural state.
I find this website really cool. It makes it very easy to understand what they are doing and how they are doing it. Trash in the ocean has been a serious problem over the years and this is a cool project that is taking place now and will have an effect on the ocean and its wildlife. Since this is new and has never been done before I am curious if it will work 100% or if there will be any unexpected problems.
Cool website! It’s amazing that The Ocean Cleanup is extremely ambitious in terms of removing 50% of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch every five years. There should be more initiatives to expand this project to other parts of the ocean that are also facing the harmful effects of plastic. If you are feeling particularly inspired about saving the oceans, you should watch the documentaries, A Plastic Ocean and Chasing Coral.
I really enjoyed this website and learning more about the efforts to clean up the ocean. Trash in the ocean can be very detrimental to the environment and the animals living in the ocean. I hope the project is successful in cleaning up the ocean.
This is such a cool website! I really appreciate how much information they include about their ambitions, updates on their project, and the research that they have conducted. I think this a wonderful initiative and I hope that it will be successful!