The Ocean Cleanup, the simple way the NGO uses to remove plastic from the oceans

The oceans, which are an important source of life on our planet, are inundated by a vortex of plastic thrown away by humans. Plastic bags, cans, bottles, clothing, electrical appliances and pipes are some of the elements that make up the tons of garbage in the seas.

As the volume of the marine landfill increases every year, the mission to save water from waste becomes increasingly important. That is the work of a few non-profit organizations that use technology to remove plastic from the oceans.

That is what The Ocean Cleanup, the NGO that works with technological solutions to remove the vortex of waste from the seas, wants to achieve. Their goal is to clean up 90% of all plastic in the ocean and prevent more waste from ending up in the sea via rivers.

The main method used by the organization is System 002, a plastic fishing system that it collects using nets and disposes of the waste in designated processing boats.

During its estimated year of activity in the Pacific Ocean, where a large amount of waste is concentrated, the mechanism collected 200 tons of plastic.

However, The Ocean Cleanup is already testing System 003, which consists of a net 2.5 kilometers long and 4 meters deep attached to two tugs. This is three times the size of System 002, and even more effective.

But there is one problem that continues to complicate plastic collection, and that is that many of these elements are classified as nanoplastics or microplastics because of their size, so small that they cannot be caught by the nets.

Therefore, the NGO is also developing a parallel task, which is to monitor the waste in a thousand rivers around the world, as they are the main cause of the spread of plastic in the sea.

By 2040, the organization hopes to have completed its mission to remove 90% of the plastic in the oceans.