The Ocean Cleanup System ‘Wilson’ developed by the Ocean Cleanup Project has been redeployed after returning to port last year for four months of repairs. The system is designed to catch plastic without harming marine life and was developed in a bid to tackle the Great Pacific garbage patch located between California and Hawaii.
In 2018, the team realised the device wasn’t moving as quickly as the plastic in the ocean, ultimately preventing it from trapping the plastic debris. The device is comprised of a 2,000ft long U-shaped barrier with a 10ft skirt beneath it, powered by nature it uses the wind, waves and currents to propel itself across the water’s surface. As it travels across the surface of the ocean it traps plastic at its core.
The barrier broke apart late last year after a battering from the waves and wind, it was returned to port to allow engineers to fix and tweak the system. It returned to the garbage patch last week, Boyan Slat, the founder of the Ocean Cleanup Project tweeted; “Hopefully nature doesn’t have too many surprises in store for us this time,”
“Either way, we’re set to learn a lot from this campaign.”
The device is fitted with solar-powered lights, cameras, sensors and satellite antennas, allowing the system to communicate its location at all times, this enables a support vessel to visit and remove the collected plastic every few months where it is then transported back to dry land. During the initial run, the organisation state that marine biologists on board of the support vessel did not discover any environmental impact. Boyan Slat hopes to one day deploy 60 of the devices to tackle ocean plastics.
The plastic garbage on the ocean is the most difficult to handle. At the same time, the garbage on the ocean is also the most harmful to the creatures. The production of a large amount of plastics causes many marine organisms to become extinct. We do not take oxygen, and we need to waste. Plastic recycling