A Project for the Earth - A Project for Everyone

A Project for the Earth - A Project for Everyone:

My county recently instituted a 5 cent per bag fee for plastic bags provided by a store at the checkout counter. The idea was to encourage a reduction in the use of plastic bags (and plastic bag waste), by having people bring reusable bags or reusing plastic bags. At first this was an inconvenience, but when you realize how much plastic waste there is, any effort to reduce this amount is worthwhile.

I have been reading about large areas in the worlds oceans, where due to ocean current and wind, huge areas of plastic waste collect, floating together at the surface. The largest of these is known as 'The Great Pacific Garbage Patch' between California and Hawaii. It is estimated to hold an unbelievable 1.8 Trillion pieces of plastic. The patch is now two times larger than the size of Texas, with bits of plastic and debris spread over more than 600,000 square miles of water. Adding to this problem, the total annual consumption of plastic continues to rise. Picture 1: ( AP Photo) shows an image of the types of plastic waste.

Picture 1: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

This plastic won't go away on its own, it will just continue to disintegrate into smaller and smaller pieces, working its way into the food chain of marine life and then to us humans. A study of the plastic waste , showed that most of the waste still consists of larger particles of plastic; large enough that they could be removed from the water.

Team Efforts:

Fortunately there are several teams working on possible solutions to cleaning up the mess. One team the "Ocean Clean Up Group" has been testing a floating prototype that will drift in the current like the plastic does. The platform has a large sea anchor suspended in the deeper, slower moving water layer, in order to slow the system down enough so that the plastic moves faster than the cleanup system. This will cause the plastic to accumulate against the cleanup system and with it's U-shape, the plastic is funneled towards the center of the system. A screen below the water line, will collect and concentrate the plastic for later removal & recycling. The team developed this product in a iterative fashion, building and testing different designs and materials. Picture 2: Shows the release candidate 120 meter test prototype.

Picture 2 : 120 Meter Test Prototype

The groups goal is to start deploying these in the Pacific later this year, ultimately scaling up to having many of these floating collection platforms. The group's computer model simulations estimate that a full scale deployment in the Pacific will clean up 50% of the existing collection of plastic waste in 5 years. Picture 3: shows an image of what a full scale collection platform would look like (from above).

Picture 3: Full Scale Model

Individual Efforts:

So what can we do to help reduce plastic waste and prevent it from collecting in our waters? One way is to practice the "3 R's " - Reduce , Re-use & Recycle . Another way is to volunteer at cleanup days the local communities host to help cleanup beaches / waterways. Additionally, one can also donate to groups like the Ocean Clean Up that are working on solutions.