$7.5 billion is needed to clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Doable in a decade
After six years of development and three years of active extraction, The Ocean Cleanup has announced that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) can be eradicated within a decade for $7.5 billion. This marks the first time a specific cost and timeline have been established for this significant environmental challenge.
The GPGP is the largest of the world’s oceans’ five offshore plastic accumulation zones. It is located halfway between Hawaii and California.
Due to seasonal and interannual variabilities of winds and currents, the GPGP’s location and shape are constantly changing. Only floating objects influenced by currents and less by winds remain within the patch.
Type of plastics
The vast majority of plastics that The Ocean Cleanup has managed to retrieve from the GPGP are made of rigid or hard polyethylene, polypropylene, or derelict fishing gear (nets and ropes, mainly). They range in size from small fragments to larger objects and metre-sized fishing nets.
The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organisation headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands, focuses on intercepting plastic in rivers and cleaning existing ocean debris. Since its inception in 2013, it has removed over 12 million kilograms of waste globally.
Ocean plastic pollution poses a dire threat, costing the global economy up to $2.5 trillion annually in damages. The Ocean Cleanup’s operations have demonstrated that current technology can clear the GPGP in ten years. Furthermore, data suggest it could be removed in just five years for $4 billion.
The Ocean Cleanup states that over the past three years, it has successfully extracted over one million pounds of debris from the GPGP, representing 0.5% of the estimated total trash. As part of its ongoing efforts, The Ocean Cleanup plans to take a one-year hiatus in 2025 to develop a new initiative to identify hotspots of plastic accumulation.
Boyan Slat, Founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, stated: “The tools to clean up the ocean are available, and we must now take action to eliminate this environmental crisis.”
The Ocean Cleanup develops and scales technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. It employs a dual strategy of river interception and ocean cleanup.
Featured image: Ocean plastic pollution damages the global economy by up to $2.5 trillion annually. Credit: The Ocean Cleanup
