Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Friday 12 May 2017

Dutch group says it will soon start cleaning up ocean trash

MIKE CORDER plastic bags than fish.
Associated Press The young entrepreneur’s
UTRECHT, Netherlands (AP) system is making waves
— A Dutch foundation among America’s super-
aiming to rid the world’s rich philanthropists. Last
oceans of plastic waste month, his foundation an-
says it will start cleaning up nounced it had raised
the huge area of floating $21.7 million in donations
junk known as the Great since November, clearing
Pacific Garbage Patch the way for large-scale tri-
within the next 12 months, als at sea. Among donors
two years earlier than were Salesforce.com CEO
planned. Marc Benioff and PayPal
The Ocean Cleanup aims co-founder Peter Thiel.
to use long-distance float- Nancy Wallace, director of
ing booms that act like the Marine Debris Program
coastlines to gather plastic at the U.S. National Oce-
as it drifts on or near the anic and Atmospheric Ad-
surface of the water while ministration, said much of
allowing sea life to pass the garbage in the world’s
underneath. The plan origi- oceans is found through-
nally was to anchor the out the water column —
barriers to the sea bed with at different depths. That
a system used by oil rigs, Plastic garbage is displayed prior to a press conference of the Ocean Cleanup foundation in would likely put some of it
but the organization said Utrecht, Netherlands, Thursday, May 11, 2017. out of reach of Slat’s barri-
Thursday it now will use an- Associated Press ers. However she applaud-
chors that float beneath ed The Ocean Cleanup
the water’s surface, mak- riers will be shipped to the concentrate the trash. Free-floating barriers be- for bringing the issue to a
ing it much more efficient. Great Pacific Garbage “At the ocean cleanup we gin to act like the plastic broad public.
The Ocean Cleanup, Patch between California always work with nature. they aim to snare, so “the “The more people are
founded by Dutch univer- and Hawaii in the first half So instead of going after cleanup systems will auto- aware of it, the more they
sity dropout Boyan Slat, of 2018, two years ahead the plastic, we let the plas- matically gravitate to those will be concerned about
announced that testing of of the organization’s ear- tic come to us, saving time, places where most plastic it,” Wallace said. “My hope
the first system will start off lier schedule. The patch is energy and cost,” Slat, a is,” Slat said. “And that now is that the next step is to say
the U.S. West coast by the a huge area of the ocean shaggy-haired 22-year-old, causes the efficiency to be ‘what can I do to stop it?’
end of the year and bar- where swirling currents told The Associated Press. a lot higher because there and that’s where preven-
Floating barriers concen- is just more plastic in front tion comes in.”
trate the plastic garbage of these systems and there- The organization’s barriers
at a central point where fore we can now clean up don’t catch tiny plastic par-
it can be fished out of the 50 percent of the patch in ticles floating in the ocean,
water and shipped back to just five years’ time.” but Slat says that by scoop-
dry land for recycling. The innovative system is the ing up larger garbage like
The organization discov- brainchild of Slat, who de- fishing nets, crates and
ered that the barriers are cided to dedicate himself other rubbish, they prevent
more efficient if they are al- to cleaning up the world’s those items breaking down
lowed to slowly drift instead oceans after he went scu- into smaller particles that
of anchoring them to the ba diving in Greece at the can be eaten by fish and
sea bed. age of 16 and saw more other wildlife.q