Stiv Wilson, policy director for 5Gyres,org which is dedicated to cleaning up the ocean,  recently posted an article pointing out that the proposed Ocean Cleanup Array is not only a pipe dream, but distracts the public from the real solution.

Digested version… any robot/automation we design to clean plastic out of the oceans will not only be prohibitively expensive.. it will also never work. Not only is it extremely difficult to get anything to work in the ocean (corrosion, storms, etc.) there is no way to collect the plastic without killing off most of the plankton.. on which most sea life depends.

Luckily the ocean deposits about 10 percent of the plastic on beaches each year. If we reduce the plastic waste that makes it to the ocean by 90% then in 10 years the ocean will also be 90% cleaner.

The solution is not to clean up the mess, it is to prevent it.

Read the Stiv’s article HERE.