In the article, “Boy Genius Boyan Slat’s Giant Ocean Cleanup Machine Is Real”, Schiller (2017) reported that the oceanographer Charles Moore observed an increase in the amount of plastic trash found in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Over time, the accumulation of plastic trash created a walkable platform. In 2011, the Ocean Cleanup machine (boom) was first introduced through a TED Talk by Slat and the major cleanup project began in 2018. Although the project was funded by individuals and companies, it received many criticisms for wasteful resources and setting an unattainable goal. However, Slat anticipates that through technological advancement, the project will be cost effective and efficient. The boom is scalable and would be launched in 2018 after the testing of its prototype. Slat has done thorough research to better understand the project. With the help of the Pacific’s currents, the floating device would gather tons of trash.
While the Ocean Cleanup project looks like it will have a promising outcome, however, I believe that there are some factors that are overlook in their research.
Firstly, the efficiency of the boom is questionable. Based on the article, the boom is designed to work efficiently, however, according to Thompson’s (2018) article, the boom does not sustain trapped rubbish and does not collect as many plastics as per design. This may be because the boom does not get pushed faster by the water and wind, therefore restricting the amount of rubbish collected. Thus, the article should address efficiency of the boom with statistics collected during the prototype stage and so that the efforts were not wasted throughout the project.
Secondly, the effects it has on marine life was not clearly stated in the article. Based on the article “6 Reasons That Floating Ocean Plastic Cleanup Gizmo is a Horrible Idea” (Clarke, 2015), the boom will have a biocide coating on the surface to reduce the rate which it is colonised by the marine life. With the coating, it poses risk and threat on microorganisms and on marine life as this biocide coating is meant to kill them with contact of the coating. The boom also poses physical threat. With the boom collecting floating plastic, some of the marine life might get trapped with the plastic, it might result in the marine life eating the plastic and eventually die due to starvation and suffocation. Thus, when the project is at its peak, more booms will be release, resulting in higher threat to the marine life and microorganisms. As a result, the ecosystem in the ocean will be affected negatively as many of them feed on microorganism. The article should have addressed this issue as this will directly affect our us.
Lastly, most of the plastic that are retried are not recyclable. The article stated that plastic collected from the ocean will be recycled into items such as car bumper, chairs, etc. However, according to Clark (2015), it states that lower-grade plastic is the product of melting recycled plastic which is unwanted in the industry. Furthermore, those plastic items have been exposed to the ultraviolet rays and attacked by the dissolve salt, therefore their quality compared to the ones in-land are lower. Moreover, most of the plastic items that are floating around are single used items which are not usually recycled or reused because the supply of the “best” type of plastic is higher than the demand. Thus, it is not feasible to recycle the collected plastic to the items mentions in the article as it is of a lower grade plastic and will break easily.
In conclusion, although the project shows a promising outcome, however there are limitations and aftermath that were overlooked. Therefore, the company should do a more thorough research and detailed work to achieve better results.
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References
Chris, C. (2015). 6 Reasons That Floating Ocean Plastic Cleanup Gizmo is a Horrible Idea. KCET. Retrieved, January 31, 2019 from
Avery, T. (2010). An Ambitious Project to Clean Up the Ocean’s Garbage Patch Isn’t Working. Retrieved, 11 February, 2019 from https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a25442808/ocean-cleanup-not-working/
Nicole Vale 