An article posted on LinkedIn by The Ocean Cleanup describes the first extraction of 2024 stating that 7029 kg of garbage has been removed from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (see blog post dated 29JAN2022: Great Pacific Garbage Patch (mermaids4cleanoceans.com)).
Your first question might be, “What does The Ocean Cleanup do with all this garbage?”. It is very interesting that they take the garbage back on land and perform research on every piece of garbage to gather information such as bite marks (from sea life), brands, languages, and production dates. This information then allows the team to the likely origins and the persistence (most abundant type) of the debris.
One study showed that the majority of the garbage collected originated from fishing activities at sea.
By systematically recording this data The Ocean Cleanup team hopes to determine whether marine life contributes to the fragmentation of floating plastic, or whether there is a preference for certain colors of plastic by ocean life.
Learn more about The Ocean Cleanup’s research and scientific publications follow the link below:
To read the entire LinkedIn post follow the link below: