Boyan Slat, creator of the Ocean Cleanup project, returns with his invention in the oceans to combat pollution.
Indeed Boyan Slat’s Ocean Cleanup System nicknamed “Wilson“, the 600 meters long (2,000 foot) floating arm designed to trap 1.8 tons of plastic without damaging marine life, returns for the second time to the sea after an unfortunate debut (In September a ship towed the U-shaped barrier from San Francisco to the patch to trap the plastic. But during the four months at sea, the boom broke apart under constant waves and wind and the boom was not retaining the plastic caught).
As announced by its creator on Twitter, the floating device designed to capture plastic waste has been redistributed in a second attempt to clean up a huge island of trash that swirls in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii.
The plastic barrier with a tapered three metre deep (10ft deep) screen is intended to act like a coastline, trapping some of the 1.8tn pieces of plastic that scientists estimate are swirling in the patch while allowing marine life to safely swim beneath it. It is also fitted with solar-powered lights, cameras, sensors and satellite antennas; that because the device intends to communicate its position at all times, allowing a support vessel to fish out the collected plastic every few months and transport it to dry land.
Boyan Slat says: «Hopefully nature doesn’t have too many surprises in store for us this time. Either way, we’re set to learn a lot from this campaign».
The intent of the entrepreneur is one day to be able to deploy 60 devices of his “fleet” to remove plastic debris from the surface of the ocean, with the approval of marine biologists who, during the last race on board the ships of support, did not detect any environmental impact.
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