
The Ocean Cleanup - gigaroby
http://www.theoceancleanup.com/
======
nothiggs
I don't know enough about the subject to have the pretence to judge whether it
can work, what I do know is that: 1\. It seems the naysayers are doing nothing
to try and change the situation, but then again, history books aren't
populated with names of critics... 2\. A partial solution is better than no
solution. It doesn't solve the problem of microscopic plastic parts ? So what
? It also doesn't solve world hunger and global warming, but having more
people with the attitude and vision of this young entrepreneur just might.

~~~
devcpp
>It seems the naysayers are doing nothing to try and change the situation

You can thank the naysayers for serious research, otherwise people would just
come up with stupid abstract ideas since no one would be skeptical or
pessimistic.

I agree with your second point, but I also think we shouldn't rush for a
temporary solution that would give people a feeling of "we have at least done
something about this, now let's stop worrying about it". Startup culture
shouldn't apply to public- or crowd-funded solutions.

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jpalomaki
Good idea. Is this a scam? Does not look like that. Can this be harmful?
Probably not at least in this scale. Ok, here's my money. Test this and let me
know if it worked.

In general it is good to be sceptical, but sometimes it can also prevent good
things from happening. I think it is better to just throw them some money (or
ignore this) than spend time trying to find reasons why this would not work.
It's not like we would need to pick either this solution or something else. We
can try this, and that and five other ideas and see which one works best.

~~~
namenotrequired
As one of over 100 volunteers for this project, I can say with confidence it's
not a scam, but a passionate team trying a crazy but by now well-researched
idea.

Totally agreed - it's not a full solution, but definitely one worth trying.

~~~
wfunction
I had a question in case you might happen to know -- why does the site
_require_ email addresses?

~~~
namenotrequired
I haven't been involved in the website itself, sorry!

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wbhart
I'm skeptical. Most of the plastics in his/her photos are visible. In the
actual gyres, most plastics are microplastics, i.e. particles from cosmetics
and clothes washing that have gone down the drain. There's a pinkie fingernail
sized piece every couple of cubic metres or so. Definitely not visible. They
also harbour life. How to remove the life and give it somewhere to live
without upsetting the ecosystem?

~~~
Panoramix
Do you have a reference for the main sources of microplastics? My
understanding is that they are the result of larger chunks of plastic that
just decompose in the oceans. By removing large plastic items we'd make a
strong leap forward.

~~~
yread
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics)

It's even in toothpastes!

~~~
mirehirefire
This is just ridiculous... We need a marketing campaign to shame companies
that use these. We ban it or legally enforce labeling of products that use
microplastics and create a negative sentiment towards it. Otherwise, this is
going to spiral out of control. If we can manage to stop it like ozone
depleting CFCs then we'll have a chance to fix this, despite the immense
energy cost.

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valinor4
This idea is already very criticized.

French article about it: [http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/2014/06/19/boyan-slat-
machine-a-n...](http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/2014/06/19/boyan-slat-machine-a-
nettoyer-les-oceans-faut-rever-253027)

~~~
Throwaway0812
I didn't see many good counterpoints in the article.

1\. They argue the majority of the waste is small particles, and they refer to
it as a 'plastic soup'. Are these particles not just larger plastic debris
that has decomposed? Wouldn't keeping up with the larger debris help prevent
the 'plastic soup' in the first place?

2\. Second point, they say the project is too big of a challenge but believe
it might work on a smaller scale. I don't think this is a situation where you
should think small.

3\. Thirdly, they say this will be in the way for boats, and wildlife. The
site addresses most of the wildlife concerns because there's nothing to
capture wildlife, and it's basically a floating wall. The wildlife can swim
under it, or away from it. I'm sure some jellyfish would be floating into it,
but it seems like a big improvement over nets. Also, it says their large scale
operational test will be 10km wide. That's not exactly disrupting the shipping
lanes in the middle of the ocean.

4\. Their last points are awful. They say the plastic waste can't be recycled,
so it's worthless to pick up, and they close with saying 'cleaning the oceans
will never be a solution', and we should instead just reduce the use of
plastic.

In short, I have no idea if this thing will work, but watching the videos, it
seems like a decent solution that's worth exploring. They seem motivated, and
a couple of million dollars isn't much to invest on such a project and team.

~~~
patrickaljord
rue89 is a far left French news site so it isn't surprising that their
solution is anti-consumerism and their skepticism directed at a private
initiative is also not surprising as they tend to favor initiatives that come
from the State only.

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wavesounds
As someone who has routinely ridden a bike along the rivers of Los Angeles I
can tell you there is nothing being done to stop the flow of trash from
streets, through storm drains, to rivers straight into the ocean. Targeting
rivers like these in major population areas seems like the cheapest, easiest,
most effective first step to stopping this problem.

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Luyt
There's a skeptoid episode about the Pacific Garbage Patch:
[http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4132](http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4132)

 _" In 1988, Robert Day, David Shaw, and Steven Ignell submitted a report to
NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) detailing the results
of four years of sample collection and analysis of plastic fragments found
floating in the Pacific Ocean. They found concentrations highest in the North
Pacific Gyre. The authors cited wind and currents as the primary force driving
the higher concentrations to the center of the Gyre. Concentrations of what?
Number one, monofilament fishing line fragments; and number two, something
called neuston plastic. Neuston plastic refers to particles that have been
broken down to a small size and are now floating just at or below the surface
of the water. Most plastic floating in the open ocean degrades quite quickly,
due primarily to ultraviolet radiation. It becomes brittle and crumbles. When
it reaches microscopic size, it competes with phytoplankton as a food source
for zooplankton, and enters the food chain. That's not good for anyone. The
authors used 203 sample stations, each about 450 square meters in size. 52.2%
of these contained plastic fragments.

Got that? Only half of NOAA's football-field sized sample areas, in the center
of the densest part of the Pacific "Garbage Patch", contain even detectable
levels of microscopic plastic. Unacceptable to be sure; but hardly a solid
island."_

~~~
rdam
No one ever said it was a "solid island of plastic" except some uninformed
members of the public. You're taking an urban legend to criticize a valid
concern. That is like saying hackers can be stopped by banning ski masks
because everyone knows a hacker is someone in a ski mask.

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userbinator
Since the majority of plastics are produced from petroleum, I wonder when it
may become viable to mine the plastics that have ended up in landfill and the
oceans - most of them are thermoplastics like polyethylene, which can be
easily remelted and recycled.

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MichaelTieso
It kills me when I say title tags on the front page as Home. I shared this one
Facebook and it comes up as Home as the title:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/2kw9fie59eg6m2w/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/2kw9fie59eg6m2w/Screenshot%202014-06-21%2009.19.29.png)

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jcr
One thing worth mentioning is the recent MIT work that can turn non-
recycleable plastics back into crude oil.

[http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/pk-clean-solving-worlds-
plast...](http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/pk-clean-solving-worlds-plastic-
problem-0620)

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esbonsa
We already started cleaning the oceans, of their fishes that is:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/03/t...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/03/the-
end-of-fish/)

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hershel
Great project. I do wonder , why are 100 people involved ? is it very
complicated ? or just the fact they volunteer so they can't give their 100%
attention to this?

~~~
namenotrequired
The short answer is, both. There's a smaller core team that works more or less
full time on this, and a lot of other part time volunteers. Personally, I
volunteered temporarily on one of their research trips only (I'm unsure if I'm
counted in the "over 100 volunteers" figure, though).

Edit: I forgot to respond to the second part. It is also very complicated - it
has already required a lot of research that hasn't been done before, and a lot
of angles need to be considered, not just in various fields of physics and
chemistry but also biology, economics and law to mention a few.

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dcarmo
Is there anyway to buy their The Feasibility Study book? I'd love to help them
and get one copy.

~~~
namenotrequired
There's only two physical copies of it right now, while they're extending the
peer review. The only way (as far as I can see) to get a physical copy is to
pledge at least $750 (see the crowdfunding page).

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a_johnson
worth trying...

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wfunction
If they could only make the email address optional, then I'd consider... there
_really_ is no good reason whatsoever to require an email address here for
someone who isn't asking for a reward.

~~~
drewfrank
That strikes me as a pretty extreme reaction. If it's an issue you care about
and you think it's a viable approach, you'd really withhold your contribution
on the basis of a required email address?

~~~
andrewflnr
It smells bad. If I'm not explicitly asking them to send me stuff, what are
they going to do with it except send me stuff I didn't ask for, AKA spam. This
particular project may well be an exception, but on today's internet that's a
healthy reflex.

