Too good to be true? The Ocean Cleanup Project faces feasibility questions
The Ocean Cleanup Project wants to deploy a large, floating structure to pull plastic from the world’s oceans. But not everyone is convinced the device can withstand the natural forces of the open ocean. Photograph: Barbara Walton/EPA
By Lindsey Kratochwill
While the 21-year-old founder of the Ocean Cleanup Project has succeeded in raising over $2m for a device that would extract plastic from the ocean, critics say the high-cost initiative is misdirected.
Last year, nonprofit foundation The Ocean Cleanup hit a milestone en route to its goal of deploying a large, floating structure to pull plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The organization issued a press release announcing it had completed a reconnaissance expedition that would pave the way for a June 2016 test of its prototype. With the help of $2.2m in crowdfunding, 21-year-old founder Boyan Slat announced his plans to deploy 100 kilometers of passive floating barriers in an effort to clean up 42% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch’s plastic pollution in 10 years.Despite considerable online enthusiasm for the project, oceanographers and biologists are voicing less-publicized concerns. They question whether the design will work as described and survive the natural forces of the open ocean, how it will affect sea life, and whether this is actually the best way to tackle the problem of ocean plastic – or merely a distraction from the bigger problem of pollution prevention. Many have also expressed concern about the lack of an environmental impact statement prior to such a large push for funding.“The thing is, what we’re trying to achieve has never been done before,” Slat says. It’s 100 times bigger than anything that’s ever been deployed in the ocean. It’s 50% deeper, and 10 times more remote than the world’s most remote oil rig. So obviously there [are] technical challenges.”
