Plan B Forum

A bid to clear the Pacific of its plastic debris has moved a step closer with the launch of the biggest prototype clean-up boom yet by the Dutch environment minister at a port in The Hague.

On Thursday the 100m-long barrier will be towed 20km out to sea for a year of sensor-monitored tests, before being scaled up for real-life trials off the Japanese coast at the end of next year.

If all goes well, full-scale deployment of a 100km-long version will take place in the “great Pacific garbage patch” between California and Hawaii in 2020.



The Dutch environment minister, Sharon Dijksma, told the Guardian that her government, which part-funded the test, was fully backing the project, which will eventually cost around €300m.

“We can use our political pressure with other governments, businesses and the international institutions to fund this on an even bigger scale,” she said. “We are used to fronting public-private [partnerships] like this. It is not new for us. When it is a success, philanthropists will be standing in line asking to join us.”

The snake-like ocean barrier is made out of vulcanised rubber and works by harnessing sea currents to passively funnel trash in surface waters – often just millimetres in diameter – into a V-shaped cone.

A cable sub-system will anchor the structure at depths of up to 4.5km – almost twice as far down as has even been done before – keeping it in place so it can trap the rubbish for periodic collection by boats.

A fully scaled-up barrier would be the most ambitious ocean cleansing project yet, capturing around half of the plastic soup that circles the Pacific gyre within a decade. That at least is the plan.

Joe Guy wrote:Don't have a cow, Bicycle McBillface....

Bicycle Bill wrote:Where did this ridiculous fad of "Somethingie McSomethingface" as a name come from, anyway?  In my opinion it never was anything more than mildly amusing, and has already gone past 'tiresome' and 'boring' and is charging full speed ahead for 'offensive'.

-"BB"-

Big RR wrote:

Bicycle Bill wrote:Where did this ridiculous fad of "Somethingie McSomethingface" as a name come from, anyway?  In my opinion it never was anything more than mildly amusing, and has already gone past 'tiresome' and 'boring' and is charging full speed ahead for 'offensive'.

-"BB"-

I can see tiresome, boring, even stupid. But how is it offensive?

Big RR wrote: I can see tiresome, boring, even stupid. But how is it offensive?