Over 100,000kg of Plastic Were Just Removed From the Great Garbage Patch

Finally, some good news about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) in the Pacific Ocean that offers hope for the future of our little blue planet. The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing technologies to remove all plastic from the ocean, reached an unbelievable milestone in July.

The organization announced that they had cleaned nearly 100,000kg (~ 220460lbs) of garbage from the Great Garbage Patch. Just to give you a perspective, that quantity is more than the combined weight of two Boeing 737-800s.

An Impressive Milestone

Since August last year, “Jenny,” also known as System 002, began harvesting plastic garbage from the GPGP in the North Pacific Ocean. If 100,000kg of plastic doesn’t sound like a grand milestone, there’s more. After a year of continuous effort, The Ocean Cleanup will enter into its next phase, where through System 003, the non-profit is hoping to remove plastic ten times higher than what has already been achieved. That’s right! The organization is working towards speeding up the plastic harvesting process by improving the harvesting technology.

In their announcement, The Ocean Cleanup shared that System 003 will be able to capture plastic at a rate potentially ten times higher than what System 002 was able to achieve. This would be possible as a combination of improved efficiency, increased size, and increased uptime.

A Long Journey Ahead

While System 003 sounds like quite the upgrade, there’s still a long road ahead for cleaning the ocean from garbage. It would take repeating the 100,000 kg removal about 1,000 times before the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is gone.

If the Ocean Cleanup partners with the Great Bubble Barrier, a Dutch invention that utilizes a wall of bubbles to trap plastic garbage in rivers, their joined technologies may lead to new and exciting technologies to speed up the waste removal process.

Who knows? Only time will tell!