The cleanup system, named System 001, is heading to a location 240 nautical miles offshore for a two-week trial before continuing its journey toward the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, 1,200 nautical miles offshore, to start the cleanup.
System 001 is being towed from the San Francisco Bay by the vessel Maersk Launcher, provided to the project by Danish Maersk Group and DeepGreen, its current charter holder.
The system consists of a 600-meter-long U-shaped floating barrier with a three-meter skirt attached below. The system is designed to be propelled by wind and waves, allowing it to passively catch and concentrate plastic debris in front of it. Due to its shape, the debris will be funnelled to the center of the system. Moving slightly faster than the plastic, the system will act like a giant Pac-Man, skimming the surface of the ocean.
The system will be deployed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the world’s largest accumulation zone of ocean plastics. Situated halfway between Hawaii and California, the patch contains 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, and covers an area twice the size of Texas.
The Ocean Cleanup said that it the first plastic could be collected and returned to land within 6 months after deployment. This will mark the first time that free floating plastic will have been successfully collected at sea. After returning the plastic to land, The Ocean Cleanup plans to recycle the material into products and use the proceeds to help fund the cleanup operations.
Once successful, and if the funding is available, The Ocean Cleanup aims to scale up to a fleet of approximately 60 systems focused on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch over the next two years. The Ocean Cleanup projects that the full fleet can remove half of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within five years’ time. This is in line with The Ocean Cleanup’s ultimate goal: reducing the amount of plastic in the world’s oceans by at least 90% by 2040.
荷蘭非營利組織The Ocean Cleanup於9月8日在舊金山灣推出了世界上第一個海洋清理系統。
名為System 001的清理系統將前往離海岸240海裡的地方進行為期兩週的試驗，然後繼續前往海上1200海裡的大太平洋垃圾帶，開始清理。
系統001由Maersk Launcher船從舊金山灣拖曳，由丹麥馬士基集團和其租庸船持有人DeepGreen提供的計劃。
該系統由一個600米長的U形浮動屏障組成，下方連接有一個三米長的護板。該系統設計為由風和海波推動，讓其被動地捕獲並集中在其前面的塑料碎片。由於其形狀，碎片將匯集到系統的中心。移動速度略快於塑料，系統將像一個巨大的吃豆人一樣，掠過海洋表面。
該系統將部署在世界上最大的海洋塑料聚集區Great Pacific Garbage Patch。該垃圾帶位於夏威夷和加利福尼亞之間，包含1.8萬億塊塑料，佔地面積兩倍於德克薩斯州。
海洋清理組織表示，第一塊塑料可以在部署後6個月內收集並返回陸地。這將意味著第一次在海上成功收集自由浮動塑料。在將塑料歸還土地之後，海洋清理計劃將材料回收到產品中，並將所得款項用於資助清理作業。
一旦成功，並且如果資金可用，海洋清理計劃在未來兩年內擴大到大約60個系統，重點關注大太平洋垃圾帶。海洋清理計劃表示整個船隊可以在五年內拆除大太平洋垃圾袋中一半的塑料。這符合The Ocean Cleanup的最終目標：到2040年，世界海洋中的塑料量減少至少90％。
Information source: World Maritime News Staff; Image Courtesy: MAERSK
