The Ocean Cleanup revealed its latest model, nicknamed Jenny. They believe this new device will make a massive dent in the plastic pollution clogging the oceans.
The device acts as an artificial floating coastline with a plastic-trapping mechanism resembling a giant arm. Once the plastic gets caught in this fold, it makes its way into a large net shaped like a funnel.Then, two ships tow the net through the water at a speed of roughly 1.5 knots.
You could probably walk faster than that, but the slow speed ensures the net doesn’t break in rough waters. Ocean currents push any floating plastic toward the device, making it easy to trap the wayward garbage.According to a 2018 study in Scientific Reports, the vortex “covers an estimated surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers, an area twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France.”At the time of sampling, the team estimated that over 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic had accumulated in the Pacific Ocean.
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