MICRO PLASTICS - Having stated in studies that the boom system would not pick up micro plastics, the Ocean Cleanup Project are now saying it does. Confusing at best, we wonder what percentage of the haul is micro particles. If it is significant, or just incidental. This news is incredibly important to other developers, who may as a result of such statements, think that the problem is solved, when in fact the numbers don't add up. For this reason we need to know exactly what the position is with some detail.

THE GUARDIAN OCTOBER 2 2019 - Ocean cleanup device successfully collects plastic for first time 

Floating boom finally retains debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, creator says. The boom skims up waste ranging in size from a discarded net and a car wheel to tiny chips of plastic. 

A huge floating device designed by Dutch scientists to clean up an island of rubbish in the Pacific Ocean that is three times the size of France has successfully picked up plastic from the high seas for the first time.

Boyan Slat, the creator of the Ocean Cleanup project, tweeted that the 600 metre-long (2,000ft) free-floating boom had captured and retained debris from what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Alongside a picture of the collected rubbish, which includes a car wheel, Slat wrote: “Our ocean cleanup system is now finally catching plastic, from one-ton ghost nets to tiny microplastics! Also, anyone missing a wheel?”

About 600,000 to 800,000 metric tonnes of fishing gear is abandoned or lost at sea each year. Another 8m tonnes of plastic waste flows in from beaches.

Ocean currents have brought a vast patch of such detritus together halfway between Hawaii and California, where it is kept in rough formation by an ocean gyre, a whirlpool of currents. It is the largest accumulation of plastic in the world’s oceans.

The vast cleaning system is designed to not only collect discarded fishing nets and large visible plastic objects, but also microplastics.

The plastic barrier floating on the surface of the sea has a three metre-deep (10ft) screen below it, which is intended to trap some of the 1.8tn pieces of plastic without disturbing the marine life below.
The device is fitted with transmitters and sensors so it can communicate its position via satellites to a vessel that will collect the gathered rubbish every few months.

Slat told a press conference in Rotterdam that the problem he was seeking to solve was the vast expense that would come with using a trawler to collect plastics.

He said: “We are now catching plastics … After beginning this journey seven years ago, this first year of testing in the unforgivable environment of the high seas strongly indicates that our vision is attainable and that the beginning of our mission to rid the ocean of plastic garbage, which has accumulated for decades, is within our sights.

“We now have a self-contained system in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is using the natural forces of the ocean to passively catch and concentrate plastics … This now gives us sufficient confidence in the general concept to keep going on this project.”

The plastic gathered so far will be brought to shore in December for recycling. The project believes there may be a premium market for items that have been made using plastic reclaimed from the ocean.
“I think in a few years’ time when we have the full-scale fleet out there, I think it should be possible to cover the operational cost of the cleanup operation using the plastic harvested,” Slat said.

The plan is to now scale up the device and make it more durable so it can retain plastic for up to a year or possibly longer before collection is necessary.

During a previous four-month trial the boom broke apart and no plastic was collected. Since then, changes have been made to the design including the addition of a “parachute anchor” to slow down the device’s movement in the ocean, allowing for faster-moving plastic debris to float into the system.

The latest trial began in June when the system was launched into the sea from Vancouver. The project was started in 2013 and its design has undergone several major revisions. It is hoped the final design will be able to clean up half of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. By Daniel Boffey (Brussels)

In mid-January 2019, the Wilson system completed its 800-mile journey and arrived in Hilo Bay, Hawaii. Ocean Cleanup planned to return the repaired system to duty by summer. In mid-June, after four months of work, the revamped system (001/B) was redeployed.

The Ocean Cleanup is non-government engineering environmental organization based at Delft, Netherlands, that develops technology to extract plastic pollution from the oceans.

BUSINESS INSIDER JUNE 28 2019: A new version of the massive plastic cleanup device invented by a 24-year-old is returning to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Young entrepreneur Boyan Slat has run into some hiccups with his plan to rid the world's oceans of plastic.

More than six years after the 24-year-old launched The Ocean Cleanup, the organization is still struggling to clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a trash-filled vortex that's more than twice the size of Texas. The widening gyre is said to contain more than 1.8 trillion pieces of floating plastic, or the equivalent of 250 pieces of debris for every person on Earth.

After launching its first device in 2018, the organization recently deployed an entirely new system in the Pacific Ocean. The improved device is meant to address problems with the old one, which was spilling plastic back into the water. 

When Slat first explained his idea in a 2012 TEDx talk, he predicted that the device could passively collect plastic using the ocean's current.

After conducting six expeditions between November 2013 and July 2015, The Ocean Cleanup indeed learned that most plastic lingers near the water's surface. But the process of capturing it turned out to complicated.

In September 2018, the organization launched its first device — a 2,000-foot-long U-shaped array known as "Wilson" — from the San Francisco Bay. More than eight weeks later, Wilson began spilling plastic back into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and its sensors and satellite system were eventually compromised.

Researchers later traced the problem to a design and manufacturing flaw that generated a crack at the bottom of the pipe, which widened into a fracture. The Ocean Cleanup was forced to return Wilson to port in December for repairs.

In the ensuing months, the organization worked hard to diagnose the problem. They eventually came to the conclusion that the device needed to travel at a consistent speed — either faster or slower than the plastic.

In June, The Ocean Cleanup launched a brand-new tool known as System 001/B from Vancouver Island. The device quickly made its way back to the garbage patch, where it is prepared to undergo a series of tests.

The first test will involve attaching a sea anchor that decelerates the speed of the system. If that doesn't work, The Ocean Cleanup will turn the device in the opposite direction and attach inflatable bags that tow it faster than the plastic. Their final plan of action is to attach fenders, which are much heavier than the bags, but will still drag the system forward.

Whichever method is successful could become part of the permanent design, but the organization still has a long way to go. In an online statement, The Ocean Cleanup said it was "looking forward to what's to come," but "prepared to encounter more unknowns."