A United Nations-backed ocean cleanup vessel aiming at cleaning up 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean has left San Francisco on its first voyage.
The vessel, which was deployed in San Francisco, consists of a 600-meter long floater that sits at the surface of the water and a tapered three-meter deep skirt attached below which catches plastic debris.
The cleanup system, designed by a 24-year old Dutch inventor and ‘UN Environment Champion of the Earth’, Boyan Slat, would undergo some trials before travelling 1,000 nautical miles to what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Read more