World's first ocean plastic-cleaning machine set to tackle Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Scientists are
preparing to launch the world's first machine to clean up the planet's
largest mass of ocean plastic. The system, originally
dreamed up by a teenager, will be shipped out this summer to the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch, between Hawaii and California, and which contains an
estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic.
The Global Crisis of Plastic Pollution: Scientists across the globe are increasingly finding wildlife that has been killed after ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic. Ninety percent of sea birds, for example, have been found to have plastic in their bellies. And the problem is only getting worse: The estimated 19 billion pounds of plastic that ends up in the ocean every year is expected to double by 2025. These plastics will not only kill more animals; they’ll decimate coral reefs, and damage human health as microplastics enter the food chain.
It will be the first attempt to tackle the patch since it was discovered in 1997. The experts believe the machine should be able to collect half of the detritus in the patch – about 40,000 metric tons – within five years. In the past few weeks they have been busy welding together giant tubes that will sit on the surface of the sea and form the skeleton of the machine, creating the largest floating barrier ever made. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) spans 617,763 sq miles - more than twice the size of France, and contains at least 79,000 tons of plastic, research found last month.
Most of it is made up
of “ghost gear” – parts of abandoned and lost fishing gear, such as nets and
ropes – often from illegal fishing vessels. Ghost
gear kills more than 100,000 whales, dolphins and seals each year,
according to scientific surveys. Seabirds and other marine life are
increasingly being found dead with stomachs full of small pieces of plastic. Creatures eat plastic
discarded in the sea thinking it’s food but then starve to death because they
are not feeding properly.
Others are trapped and
die of starvation or are strangled or suffocated by ghost gear. More than 8 million
tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year, according to the US-based
Plastic Oceans Foundation. Up to 90 per cent of
the world’s plastic items are never recycled, and scientists believe nearly
every piece ever created is still in existence somewhere, in some form, with
most going into landfill or the environment. Single-use plastic, such as water
bottles and nappies, take 450 years to break down… read more:
