French article about it: http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/2014/06/19/boyan-slat-machine-a-n...
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.
http://www.theoceancleanup.com/blog/show/item/responding-to-...
I am not qualified to judge the merits of the criticism or the response, I'm just kind of happy someone is at least trying to do something about trash in the ocean.
so what?
I'd say they were in good company.
On a quasi-related note, here's a project I'm launching soon. It's for innovators: http://diepenniless.com
I have no idea if they plan to do this, but I suspect they might (otherwise why would they require an email address?) and the onus on them to prove they don't intend to do that. Claiming you want to do something good doesn't automatically win everyone's trust.
It's hard to show invisible things in photos :) Or artist's impressions for that matter.
I volunteered on one of their research trips on a gyre and can tell you that, while you're right that most plastic is invisible from more than a few meters away, there's still a lot of visible plastic as well.
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.
Totally agreed - it's not a full solution, but definitely one worth trying.
"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."
Second, 450 square meters is about 1/9th of an acre or a little under 5,000 square feet which is not actually that big. Also, you don't really get uniformity with floating debris it's a mix of high and low concentrations the real issue is what the average concentration because you could double the amount of debris and still have large gaps. More to the point they are sampling that area not fully straining 450 square meters.
PS: Not that I think this is an important issue, just trying to be clear.
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.
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.
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/pk-clean-solving-worlds-plast...
