System 3 VS Pacific Garbage Patch

Have you heard of the garbage patch in the Pacific ocean? Have you also thought to yourself, “What is it exactly? Just a huge amount of garbage floating in the sea?”. Well, let’s get into it. The Pacific garbage patch has been a concern since the 70s , but really started to become a topic of conversation in 2018 as it has grown to be twice the size of Texas. As it is twice the size of Texas, it is not just a floating large island of trash. The majority of it is micro plastics. Studies have shown that 94% of the patch is microplastics. Which poses a huge threat to marine life, ocean health, and us due to the marine life’s intake of plastics and our intake of fish.

So, why does all this plastic centralize in the middle of the Pacific? Well, The great Pacific garbage patch is in the North Pacific subtropical Gyre. A gyre is a large system of rotating ocean currents driven by wind and the Earth’s rotation. These are high pressure systems which cause the trash to stay in the middle, calmer waters of the gyre. Think of a huge whirlpool. 

There are five major gyres, the North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean – and they all have garbage patches. The media focuses on the North Pacific patch as it has been the most researched and as the patch there is the largest due to the size of the gyre itself. The other four gyres are also more remote which cause research being more of a challenge. 

The five major gyres in the ocean are important systems to their edge waters. The system brings nutrient-rich water to the surface which supports diverse marine life.

Progress against the garbage patch

The Ocean Clean Up non profit organization has been working hard to combat this issue for 13 years now. The organization was founded by Boyan Slat in 2013, and launched System 001 in 2018 which is a floating barrier that cleans up the garbage patch centralizing in the North Pacific. There were some initial issues causing System 001 not to collect the trash , or completely break apart. With some design changes System 001/B was created, and then followed by System 002 and 003. The most recent barrier, System 003, is stunning, beautiful, remarkable. It is three times larger than System 002. It is massive, the whole thing is about 20 football fields long. 

So, how does it work? The Floating Barrier has long floating arms that create a U shape that guides the plastic toward the center. This Barrier also goes underwater about 13 feet to catch plastic down unda. The center is the Retention Zone. This is where the plastic centralizes and is gathered into a bag and once full, will be lifted into a ship where plastic will be removed, sorted through, and recycled. And to stay with the football field comparison, System 003 can clean the area of a football field every 5 seconds. 

There are two ships , or vessels, that tow the system through the garbage patch at a slow walking speed. Think like 1.5 on the treadmill. One ship usually tows the Barrier and the other handles the extraction from the retention zone. 

The vessels are sent through areas with high plastic density found with satellite data. The computer model that System 03 runs on uses multiple satellites. Like the WorldWide-3; this satellite compares green and Near-Infrared wavelengths to differentiate plastic from water. Also the Copernicus Marine Service,which provides oceanographic information on ocean currents, winds, and waves, which are critical for showing the movement of plastics and deciding where to place the vessels. The System 03 also has real time cameras and sensors to monitor the retention zone to see how much is being picked up. 

And if you’re wondering, “what do they do about the fish that get stuck in the retention zone?” , they have a plan set in place for that using the same cameras and sensors I just mentioned. If an animal is spotted within the retention zone, then a hatch is opened to let the animal out. It is called the Marine Animal Safety Hatch , or MASH for short. The Ocean Clean Up team thinks of everything!

Why would garbage in the middle of the ocean affect little ol me? 

The work that the Ocean Cleanup has done and continues to do is vital to our marine life, our health, and even our economy. (money is everything so I should have started with that first). The garbage patch not only leads to microplastics found in sweet little fishies, but leaches chemicals into the water, and also found in the sweet little fishies. All these microplastics and chemicals lead to hormonal imbalances and cancer in humans through the food chain. And if you don’t eat seafood. Well, guess what, it’s in the salt. The tap water. The air. 

The harm to our environment and our bodies also brings down the local economy. Orange County CA beaches have been hit with a huge decrease in tourism. This is due to the high amounts of plastic pollution and marine debris, like fishing gear: nets, lines, traps, ect. No one wants to visit a dirty beach. The same issues affect Hawaii – Oahu, Maui, and Kauai have been hit harder than the other islands as they are windward facing the Pacific. The pollution is not only washing up on shore, but polluting the areas in which people snorkel and deep sea dive.  These areas are highly dependent on tourism. Less tourism, less jobs, and less money towards local preservation of the environment and culture. System 003 isn’t just cleaning up the garbage patch, it’s also preventing further issues in our food chain, our planet, our health, and our pockets!

It’s incredible what this team has been able to accomplish since 2013. Ocean Clean Up has gathered 50,000 metric tons of garbage since 2013! If you’d like to learn more about their process and future plans you can go to theoceancleanup.com , and if you’d like to donate you can there, too. 

Thank you for reading!