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'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' Can Be Cleaned Within 10 Years, Says Ocean Cleanup Project

"Six years after sailing out of San Francisco with the ambition of developing the technology to rid the world's oceans of plastic, The Ocean Cleanup returned to San Francisco with the knowledge and know-how to relegate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to the history books," according to a new announc...

"Six years after sailing out of San Francisco with the ambition of developing the technology to rid the world's oceans of plastic, The Ocean Cleanup returned to San Francisco with the knowledge and know-how to relegate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to the history books," according to a new announcement from the group.As the Los Angeles Time describes it, "After three years extracting plastic waste from the notorious Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an environmental nonprofit says it can finish the job within a decade..." Twice the size of Texas, the mass of about 79,000 metric tons of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii is growing at an exponential pace, according to researchers. The cleanup vessels deploy enormous u-shaped floating barriers to funnel trash toward a focal point where it can then be loaded aboard and brought to shore... Next year the group will take "a one-year operational hiatus," according to the announcement — to deploy a new initiative mapping areas of intense plastic accumulation to make extractions "more impactful."

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