![]() ![]() ![]() The data is currently being evaluated and is due to be published this year. Egger and his team have been sampling the surface water in front of and behind the cleanup system on a weekly basis to compare the composition of neuston, to understand which species to look out for, what effect the cleanup system has, and whether there are seasonal differences in how many neuston are present. ![]() In recent years, neuston have become a particular focus. We also actively contribute to the understanding of an ecosystem that we barely know,” says Matthias Egger, whose role is to conduct research that helps TOC engineers further develop and scale up its cleanup system. But as a private player operating in international waters where few rules apply, TOC is not required to publish these. “We do much more than just clean, which is difficult enough. In addition to collecting plastic, TOC conducts its own ocean research, as well as environmental impact assessments that determine and describe the potential damage of the cleanups. They then photographed 22 of these samples. They did the same in the periphery and outside the patch for comparison. Behind them they towed a small net along the surface of the water every day to take samples of floating marine life and plastic debris. A sailing crew accompanied long-distance swimmer Benoît Lecomte as he swam right through the patch. Add to this wind and swirling ocean currents, which bring plastic and neuston in from afar, and “patches” form.īack in 2019, a rare occurrence allowed Helm, who is an assistant professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, to study the contents of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s not that the plastic is somehow creating an opportunity for life to emerge, says marine biologist and corresponding author Rebecca Helm, but rather that plastic debris and organisms tend to float up and clump together in water, like cereal in a bowl. ![]() That they are, essentially, disrupting a marine habitat.Īccording to a new study, floating marine life, known as “neuston,” often ends up in the same places as plastic. But more recently, new charges have been laid at the door of TOC: that its cleanup efforts are capturing not only plastic but also sea creatures that live among it. To Boyan Slat, the founder of TOC, this cleanup work “signifies an age in which we’re starting to correct the problems we ourselves have created.” To TOC’s critics, the project is costly and inefficient-a distraction from the root of the problem, which is too much plastic being discarded and not enough preventing it from getting into the sea. In this area, which is roughly three times the size of France, at least 400 times the amount of plastic extracted by TOC remains, to which more is added every day as it is discarded from boats or flows into the sea from rivers. Since 2021, the nonprofit has recovered 200 tons of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area between California and Hawaii that is notorious for its floating waste, which is concentrated there by ocean currents. The Ocean Cleanup (TOC) is the world’s largest organization working to remove floating plastic from the ocean. But they’re aiming to catch something else: plastic. You could be forgiven for thinking they are trawlers. Pulled behind them is a giant U-shaped barrier, which almost looks like a fishing net. In the northern Pacific Ocean, two sky-blue ships are sailing parallel to one another, several hundred meters apart. ![]()
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