The ambitious project by The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch non-profit group, hopes to clean up half of the infamous garbage patch within five years when all systems are deployed. The supply vessel was towing a 600 meter-long boom device dubbed System 001, designed to contain floating ocean plastic so it can be scooped up and recycled. The system includes a tapered three-meter skirt to catch plastic floating just below the surface. Laurent Lebreton, the project’s lead oceanographer, said they believe the Pacific garbage patch contains some 80,000 metric tons of plastic waste. He said that scientists first learned about the plastic concentrating in the Pacific garbage patch in the 1970s.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer September 09, 2018 08:15 UTC