Student Develops Ocean Cleanup Array That Could Remove 7,250,000 Tons Of Plastic From the World's O

There's one thing I've always wondered...

Why the hell do birds eat the plastic? I mean like... it doesn't smell good, it doesn't taste good. Don't they have a natural instinct that tells them it isn't food?

Originally posted by sean
I suggested something similar like this a couple months ago to US gov website. A rig like that out at sea to capture the garbage. Yes it will cost initial money, but we created the problem and we're the only ones that can fix it. The salvaged plastic can be used to make new products or fuel/oil. It's a win win win. It's good to see others out there that think the same way.

1. Clean up the environment.
2. Create jobs.
3. Sell the plastic to fund the project.

Ummm...Wow...I stated in a thread about a month ago that instead of 30,000 drones flying over Amerika we should instead make 30,000 drone garbage scows to clean up the oceans...some for plastic and some to just filter out contaminants...I thought that a foundation would be the best way to go...I even e-mailed the UN environmental agency to find out how such a project would be affected by international treaties....I'm still waiting for a reply back...not really expecting one though.....

That was my thought as well...sell the plastic to help offset cost...although most of the funding would be from Governments, corporations, philanthropists, etc...Have various media personalities put a "face" on the issue...etc.

YouSir

Good luck getting this past the environmentalists. Ironic, isn't it, that they shoot themselves in the foot and deny the ability to do good because there MAY be a farting toad that may be frightened by the process.

On paper it sounds like a good idea but in reality, what happens during a major storm where swells reach several meters in height or even on generally rough seas where waves will far exceed the height of the booms? Surely all of the plastic will wash over and below and potentially, a spillage of all of the collected plastic could occur. This would release an accumulated concentration of plastics into a single part of the ocean which would cause far more damage than if it was dispersed over thousands of miles.

First the tree bombs now this

Maybe humanity is headed in the right direction after all.

I think one day in the future, old landfills and dumps will be goldmines for reusable energy in the form of fuels. It would be nice to see the same involvement with our oceans, but unfortunately, their far away and not in our back yards. In the time that we have been polluting our seas with plastic you gott'a admit, the stuff is breaking down into microscopic size particles pretty fast verses in landfills. I'm not saying this is good, but rather the rate of decomposition due to wave action has been fairly quick in the time it has become a problem. What, three decades or so... In Earth-time thats pretty rapid. If we were to stop dumping today, maybe in forty or fifty years our oceans would have time to grind it all to nothingness.

Went to site and now there's a large bold red area saying this:

READ THIS FIRST The last couple of days several (spontaneous) articles have been published, claiming The Ocean Cleanup Array is a feasible method of extracting plastic from the gyres. This is an incorrect statement; we are currently only at about 1/4th of completing our feasibility study. Only after finishing that study, we believe such statements should be made. Although the preliminary results look promising, and our team of about 50 engineers, modellers, external experts and students is making good progress, we had and have no intention of presenting a concept as a feasible solution while still being in investigative phase. Please stay tuned for this study, which will be published online in several months' time. Thank you.

well see if it's feasible

b

reply to post by purplemer


Good on him!

The Pacific garbage patch especially weighs on my mind as one of the many blights humans have left on our planet.

A disgusting fact I recently learned after the carnival cruise episode: Cruise liners have chutes on the ships to ditch passenger trash directly into the ocean. WTH!?!

You'd think that would be internationally illegal. Not to mention the countries which are allowed to use the ocean for waste disposal.

It's just sickening how it is allowed.

There are massive amounts of plastic in the ocean and these deivices could be really helpful in cleaning up the oceans. It would be nice if they used them on the great pacific garbage patch. But who would pay for it...

Likes of Bill Gates and other CEOs of multi billion dollar companies from multiple verticals (food, technology, industrial manufacturing etc etc). Atleast they should cough up some as part of their social responsibility and possible tax writeoffs as a corporation.

Originally posted by EartOccupant
reply to post by Teye22

 

Good start
Even smarter would be it running autonomous and on the plastic parts by using them as fuel

Pollution Plastics can be very toxic when used as fuel. Kills the purpose partially IMO

reply to post by Xaphan


birds have what are known as crops its where there food goes first before there "stomach". They eat small rock and things to help break down the food. Plus I would bet they are attracted to the colors of some plastic items thinking they are fruits, if you think about it most berries don't have a flavor or smell before they are broke open either.


Though this project seems like a good idea, I don't see it ever coming to fruition. When it really comes down to it there probably isn't much of a profit to be made with this "invention". You spend a couple million building each of these machines, Then buy boats to pull them out into the ocean, then buy more boats to retrieve the plastic. Then supposedly in five years the resource you were collecting will be gone and your stuck with millions of dollars in equipment that is obsolete.

Plus how will this machine affect the local marine life by the looks of it the arms contain some sort of net under the water, it states in the article that plankton would be filtered out, but what about larger animals. It seems like the arms would end up collecting the trash then creating a large wall of trash that animals would end up getting stuck in.

I'm not trying to completely destroy this idea, I just think when people see environmental things like this they put blinders on. We need to step back and look at the practical application of this machine and the negative affects it will have.

If it sucks up trash, you'd think it would suck up wildlife too.

reply to post by purplemer


If we can't even spend for preventative environmental concerns I doubt we can get people to pay for ideas like these! Till we straighten out our priorities, we will face an ever increasing amount of social and environmental concerns! When we are more concerned with sports, celebrities and lifestyles we will continue to destroy our oceans, land and air as well as ourselves! Just like any addiction the first step is to admit we have a problem but
good luck getting our PC society to admit anything is wrong!

Originally posted by bgold1212
If it sucks up trash, you'd think it would suck up wildlife too.

Generally wildlife doesn't float on the surface. However chances are for certain types if its close to the surface and/or the plastics. Then again, the process might be over within a matter of few months and has to be repeated every so often or if the buildup is big enough for the equipment to go back out there to recover the plastic debris again. The fraction of the wildlife lost might be less in comparison to the potential damage it could inflict if left out there in the ocean IMO.

awesome, lets make it happen...

thank you

wouldn't it pay for itself with all the recycled plastic it collects ?

reply to post by mykingdomforthetruth


Yes it would. It is estimated that the amount of plastic collected would pay for the operation...

Read the article and click the links on the site in the OP before commenting. It answers the stupid that's fallen out of peoples heads in this thread.

Power is not an issue. Structural integrity is not a problem. Engineering and funding is.

There's nothing about this that can't be realized with engineering and funding. Oil platforms are basically the same structure, and they have been doing their jobs for 30-40 years. These things need 5-10 years to undo some of the enormous damage humanity has done to the oceans.

At a fraction of the cost of offshore oil operations.

That's nothing, literally.

reply to post by GreenGlassDoor

Time will tell if its economically feasible.

That comment sums up the situation really and our mentality.

Who cares whether it's economically feasible, it's ecologically feasible. That's the most important thing. Hopefully money will be invested into this idea rather than something utterly pointless like say....the F-35 or billions spent replacing Britain's trident nuclear weapons.

The only way a project like this can get off the ground is if the harvested plastic can be turned into profit.

The only way that profit can be generated is if there is already some type of process to render the plastic into material that can be utilized. Currently only a small fraction of plastic is recycled.



Collecting the plastic is the easy part...

Turning the plastic into a raw manufacturing material....there's the problem that needs to be addressed first otherwise it just remains garbage piled up somewhere.

My idea would be to shred the plastic, press it with a binder [semi melted plastic] into bricks, Beams, sheets, insulation, etc.

Who wants to invest in my idea?