Garbage ‘patch’ is much worse than believed, entrepreneur says

[sketchy]

Source: sfgate

It is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — a mass of plastic floating debris estimated to be twice the size of Texas and concentrated between California and Hawaii.

But to Boyan Slat, the 21-year-old Dutch entrepreneur who is orchestrating what he envisions as the largest ocean cleanup effort in history, “patch” is far too gentle a term. He prefers “ticking time bomb.”

On Sunday, the seasick-prone Slat watched safely from on shore as the 170-foot mother ship of the 30-vessel “mega expedition” docked in San Francisco with its haul of several tons of plastic debris.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Entrepreneur-thinks-garbage-patch-is-far-6460890.php

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It's a start!

[pnwmom]

1. Thanks, sketchy. nt

[sketchy]

2. You're welcome!

Nice to hear good news occasionally.


(Good news about the cleanup beginning, that is.)

[pnwmom]

5. Yes -- I'm glad he's trying and hope he's successful. n/t

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. A big, fat K&R!

[sketchy]

4. Thank you!

[NCarolinawoman]

6. Good for this young man!

But some people will keep throwing this mess into our beautiful water!

[d_legendary1]

7. I didn't even know that thing existed!

That's terrible!

[sketchy]

10. I'm sorry you are just learning about this horrid reality.

At least there is hope with Slat's invention.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. As soon as someone self-identifies as an "entrepreneur," I discount pretty much everything they say

Oh, an entrepreneur? You don't say.

zzzzzzzz - tune out - zzzzzzzzz

[sketchy]

9. He's a young man trying to save the planet

also from the article:

"Slat began his seemingly impossible cleanup quest at 16, when he was diving off Greece and saw more plastic bags than fish in the waters of the Mediterranean.

“I was wondering, why can’t we just clean this up? Why isn’t anyone working on this?”

He later dropped out of college. He has won international recognition for his environmental cleanup efforts, notably his novel approach that would cut costs and allow a rapid solution to the problem. It involves deploying an array of floating barriers anchored to the sea floor, which would extend in a V-shape 30 miles in both directions to use the ocean current to drive the debris to the center. The plan is expected to be tested in Japanese waters next year."

***************************************************
Far more to him than just being an entrepreneur.
And good luck to anyone attempting this gargantuan cleanup without money.

[Orrex]

12. Oh, sure--he *says* that...

But has he given any thought to the years of effort that people have put into building this endless, disgusting expanse of garbage? And he would blithely clean it up?!?

I call that pretty damn selfish.

[sketchy]

13. Touché

[1monster]

20. Did he "self-identify" as an entrepreneur? Or did the article identify him as such?

Dictionary.com: entrepreneur - noun; a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.

Sounds like a fitting word to me.

[LanternWaste]

21. Sounds as though you've placed as much thought into your sentiment as possibly...

Sounds as though you've placed as much thought into your sentiment as possibly...

[asiliveandbreathe]

11. With all the cash floating about in political camps you

would think maybe someone would throw this guy some help - imagine - getting involved at the highest level - or would that be too "community organizing"....instead of the war on women for example...we could have a war on pollution of our oceans..

Good on this man - sounds like he has others helping....

[hay rick]

14. K&R

[daleanime]

15. K&R.....

[SunSeeker]

16. K & R

[madokie]

17. A good start

just think most all that plastic comes from oil. It doesn't have to but it does

[sofa king]

18. I wonder, though....

I remember an episode of Nature, or maybe Nova, about the Sargasso Sea and it mentioned how useful floating trash was in providing anchor points for the floating seaweed. Each little bottle was a miniature ecosystem that had attached plants, young fish hiding in the plants, and their predators hanging about.

So I can't believe that I am saying this, after DECADES of having to listen to a-holes saying things like, "maybe global warming is good for us," but seriously, we need to make sure that the Great Garbage Patch is not adding to the biomass and diversity of the planet before we clean it up.

[snooper2]

19. It's not really like the fake pictures people have seen, this kid needs to do research

Maybe he should watch the VICE documentary on it from years back...

People think it's like a floating garbage field that looks like you can walk on it- Not

It's actually worse because in theory you could scoop up a floating field. It's really small plastic particles half the size of a tick-tack suspended x-number of feet below the surface. You would basically have to scoop up billions of gallons of water and filter it for years and years with hundreds of ships-

[1monster]

22. The article addressed that issue, "plastic soup," and said that was

the reason for urgency, that much of the larger plastics had not yet broken done and it needed to be collected before it did.

[alarimer]

23. The problem is most plastic in the ocean is ALREADY in tiny pieces.

Garbage "patch" is something of a misnomer. For all the stuff you can see, there is a whole lot more you can't. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to try and get rid of what you can see, but the problem is what has already broken down. Pieces small enough for planktonic organisms to consume, providing no nutritive value.

Nice idea, but it's a little late. The solution is to stop using plastics, despite the convenience.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. "floating barriers anchored to the sea floor, which would extend in a V-shape 30 miles in both

directions".

I'd like a proper investigation into the effect that would have on marine life. I don't care what the Dutch guy thinks - he's the publicity. Julia Reisser is at least an "aquatic pollution researcher", but biologists and oceanographers need to weigh in on this too.

[sketchy]

26. Here is a link to his foundation's website

This may answer some of the question about how this would affect marine life.

http://www.theoceancleanup.com/


From what I can tell, the booms mostly affect the surface of the water, and are easy for aquatic life to avoid, but I'll keep reading...

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. I'm reading too - the proposals have been widely circulated for comment

which makes me think this is far more feasible than you might tell from the newspaper article.

What I haven't been able to find so far is, after a discussion about how the currents vary in direction over time at any one post (which seems fairly considerable), how a change in direction would affect the plastic that had been slowly drifting to the collection point. Maybe that's in there somewhere (I've only skimmed it, so to speak), but the computational modelling I've seen so far seems to be with fixed current directions.

[Loryn]

25. The Washed Ashore Project

An art program in my town that utilizes plastics that wash up on the beach.

[valerief]

28. We can thank the fossil fuel industry for all the disposable plastic in the world.

We don't need plastic bags. We could have paper bags made from weeds. We don't need plastic containers for our shampoo and detergent. We can use bar shampoo and dry detergent. We can use more glass and less plastic. Why do milk and juice containers need plastic? Why do we buy bottled water instead of multi-use water filters?

I'm so over plastic.