Cleaning Up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Written by: Haley Chasin, UHM MOP Alumna
Approximately 24 to 35 million metric tons (Mt) of plastics enter oceans, rivers, and lakes annually, contributing to the estimated 5 trillion pieces of plastic currently in the ocean. This amounts to a large-scale problem and something that needs to be addressed. Solutions include reducing waste, improving waste management, and cleaning up the ocean and other waterways. Plastics do their job in that they are hard to degrade. The weight loss of plastic is less than 1% a year; the most common plastic, polyethylene, could take up to a century to go away.
The most common types of plastics found in the ocean are High-Density Polyethylenes (HDPE) these include fishing equipment, ghost nets, bottle caps, toothbrushes, detergent bottles, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel bottles, beverage bottles, crates, pieces of buckets and toys. A smaller percentage of Low-Density Polyethylenes (LDPE) and PP (Polypropylene) exist in the ocean. The densities of these plastics are lower than water which makes them float more easily and stay in the ocean longer. Some plastics do not stay in the ocean but wash up onto shore or sink close to the coast. These plastics include plastic bags, cigarette filters, PET bottles, styrofoam food and beverage containers, straws, and textiles. Right now, 5-10% of the plastics in the ocean are microplastics, small particulate plastic less than 5 mm in diameter.
The plastics that go into the ocean accumulate in currents known as gyres. The plastics will continue to circulate until they break down into smaller pieces eventually becoming microplastics, making them harder to clean up and easier for animals to ingest. The accumulation of plastics becomes ocean garbage patches; the largest one is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), located between Hawaii and California. The Ocean Cleanup crew devised a plan.
On October 20th they launched System 002, “Jenny,” a system that will collect garbage in the ocean without causing harm to the ecosystem. It works by creating a circulating current in the garbage patch that moves plastic around, creating changing hotspots where the system cleanup occurs. The net is wide enough to collect plastic but also narrow enough to allow fish to escape. It maintains a current speed and catches the plastic in the retention zone by correcting its wingspan, speed, and direction.
Once the system is full, the plastic goes onboard to be sorted and is later used to make sunglasses. The system is designed to capture plastics of both small and large size, including ghost nets. Since its deployment in August 2021, the Ocean Cleanup crew has collected 101,353 kg of plastic over 45 extractions in an area of 3,000 km squared, the size of Rhode Island. Their goal is to start at rivers to make sure that more plastics do not enter the oceans while other clean-up projects are occurring in the open ocean.
Humans use multitasking daily to solve problems related to eradicating disease, climate change, reducing poverty, and improving education so clearly, we should be able to do the same thing with plastic. To help this company and their mission you can volunteer and do your part to refuse, reuse, reduce and recycle plastics. Additionally, beach cleanups and cleaning up around your local community can be beneficial for both the environment and the community.