Wilson, a 2,000 foot-long floating pipe is about to start the strenuous journey of collecting all the plastic in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. According to the Ocean Cleanup Foundation, the world’s first cleanup system was launched in San Francisco to take on the seemingly impossible task of “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” In between both San Francisco and Hawaii, it’s twice the size of Texas and is one of the five largest ocean trash piles on Earth.  

In the shape of a “U” it features a three meter deep net underneath it to trap floating plastic under the water’s surface. Once every couple of months, a boat will return to the spot to remove the debris – similar to a garbage truck for the ocean, and return it back to shore. With the creation of Wilson, the goal is to recycle the plastic and create new products.

According to 24-year-old Ocean Cleanup founder and CEO Boyan Slat, “That plastic is still going to be there in one year. It’s still going to be there in ten years. It’s probably still going to be there in 100 years, so really only if we go out there and clean it up is this amount of plastic going to go down.” Expected to triple in the next decade, the world’s ocean has about 150 million tons – this type of trash disposal has harmful and has real implications for climate change, the safety of sea life, and industries such as fishing and tourism. By April 2019, Ocean Cleanup hopes the pipe will collect 50 tons of trash and clean up 90% of the world’s ocean plastic by 2040.

By researching and testing the pipe for the past five years, the project has raised over $2 million through crowdfunding and has since raised over $30 million since 2013. The trash collects in the middle of the “U” shaped pipe and includes satellite pods that allow communication with the company’s headquarters in the Netherlands and other boats to share its location – and is controlled remotely with two cameras located in the center.

While some experts question how a system like this can put a real impact on such large oceans, criticism for its inability to capture small pieces of debris and the possibility of some sea life getting trapped inside pose a concern. Eben Schwartz, the marine debris program manager at the California Coastal Commission stated his main worry – the percentage of plastic that floats could be collected this way would be too small to make a difference, and focusing on trash reduction with land-based efforts would be more effective. “It’s much more effective from a cost and prevention effort to stop trash from entering in the first place,” stated Schwartz.

The need and growing issue to clean up our oceans is getting beyond the attention from this project. Last week, President Donald Trump officially signed the “Save the Seas Act,” which aims to help clean ocean waste by extending its own cleanup initiative, the Marine Debris Program for five more years!