Ocean Cleanup is struggling to keep its promise to take plastic to the sea

VICTORIA, Canada, Sept. 16 (Reuters) – Coupled in a Canadian port, crew members returned from a test of the Ocean Cleanup system to deliver the Pacific from plastic garbage. he doubted that the effort could succeed.

The non-profit organization, launched in 2013 amid high media coverage, hopes to eliminate 90% of the world’s floating plastic from the world’s oceans by 2040. But the group’s own optimal scenario (still likely years away) predicts eliminate 20,000 tons a year from the North Pacific, a small fraction of the approximately 11 million tons of plastic that flow into the oceans annually.

And that amount entering the ocean is expected to nearly triple to 29 million tons a year by 2040, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Ocean Cleanup, funded by cash donations and corporations such as Coca-Cola (KO.N), as well as donors in cash such as AP Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO), had fixed assets in excess of $ 51 million ($ 43 million). of euros) at the end of 2020.

During last month’s 120-hour deployment, System 002 – or “Jenny,” as the crew’s nickname, obtained 8.2 tons of plastic, or less than the standard transportation of a garbage truck. Ocean Cleanup spokesman Joost Dubois described the amount as “at the highest point of our estimates” and stressed that it was still in the testing phase.

“I think they come from a good place where they want to help the ocean, but by far the best way to help the ocean is to prevent plastic from getting into the ocean,” said Miriam Goldstein, director Ocean Policy Center for American Progress.

“Once the plastic has entered the open ocean, it becomes very expensive again and consumes fossil fuels to recover it.”

GARBAGE OF THE GARBAGE

The first target of Ocean Cleanup is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the world’s largest eddy mass of marine debris spanning 1.6 million square miles in the North Pacific, between California and Hawaii. The group estimates that the patch contains at least 79,000 tons of plastic.

If the flow of plastic into the ocean continues unabated, the sea will contain more plastic mass than fish by 2050, according to the World Economic Forum.

Ocean Cleanup, created by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat when he was 18, initially planned to use a stand-alone floating system driven by wind, waves and currents to remove plastic. But that first system, called Wilson, jumped ineffectively next to the trash until it finally broke. A later design, System 001B, was more efficient, but the team estimated that they would need 150 such systems to clean the patch at a high cost.

With the Jenny system, two fuel-powered Maersk vessels tow the 520-meter-wide horseshoe-shaped catchment system across the ocean surface. An underwater camera helps ensure marine life doesn’t get tangled up.

“Jenny has surpassed everything we’ve done so far,” Dubois said of the recent six-week tests, during which the system collected plastics up to 1 centimeter in diameter.

Ocean Cleanup expects to eventually deploy 10 to 15 extended-range Jennys, powered by 20 to 30 ships, to operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in the trash. At this scale, organizers say, the effort could recover between 15,000 and 20,000 tons of plastic a year, even though it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The group regrets its reliance on ships that release climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. Ocean Cleanup is buying carbon credits to offset heavy fuel use and noted that Maersk is experimenting with less polluting biofuels. “Preferably we would have done something without a carbon footprint,” Dubois said.

Maersk told Reuters that due to the hard and remote location of the patch, large ships were needed to help Jenny’s operations.

“We see value not only in the outcome of Ocean Cleanup programs, but also in the iterative learning process,” said Robin Townley, head of special project logistics at Maersk.

“WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE WASTE YOU COLLECT?”

With a tendency to seasickness, the founder of Ocean Cleanup, Slat, is not used to venturing into the open ocean.

“The plastic that is already in the ocean – accumulated in these stains – does not disappear on its own,” Slat told Reuters. “It has to be eliminated if we want to get back to the clean oceans.”

Marine scientists have long squandered Slat’s vision. Marcus Eriksen, co-founder of the 5 Gyres Institute, a plastic pollution research organization in California, expressed frustration that “this end-of-line narrative is still (still) getting a lot of attention.”

He noted that the group’s funding comes from companies “that actually manufacture the products and packaging. They don’t really like preventive history because it affects their end result.”

Coca-Cola, classified as the world’s largest plastic pollutant by environmental groups, helps fund Ocean Cleanup’s parallel initiative to use solar-powered “interceptors” to capture plastic on Asian and Caribbean waterways before it reaches the ocean.

“We have made it clear that we want to be part of the solution to addressing the critical problem of packaging waste, rather than being part of the problem,” said Ben Jordan, Coca-Cola’s senior director of environmental policy. “We’re moving forward, but we still have a lot more to go through.”

Coca-Cola is committed to reducing the use of new plastic in its packaging by 20% over the next four years. Read more

Although Eriksen said cleaning up the river was a worthwhile goal, he mocked the involvement of a company that produces 3 million tonnes of plastic packaging a year. “It’s exactly that kind of green story.”

The other confusing problem of effort? “What do you do with the garbage you pick up?” Eriksen said.

The small plastic 001B system was used to make $ 200 sunglasses, sold on the Ocean Cleanup website.

In the future, Ocean Cleanup hopes to partner with consumer brands to reuse reclaimed plastic, Dubois said, though “maybe we’ll have to incinerate” some.

Report by Gloria Dickie; Edited by Katy Daigle and Lisa Shumaker

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