Category Archives: Blog 3

Cigarette Butts and the Impact on the Mediterranean Environment

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The Mediterranean Sea is a beautiful water body located in the heart of the Mediterranean basin and is virtually completely surrounded by land mass. This sea plays a vital role in not only the environmental and geographical aspect of the Mediterranean however also the economical. Tourists travel from all across the globe to visit the stunning environment that the Mediterranean basin has to offer. In 2019 the Mediterranean saw roughly 304 million arrivals from countries outside of the Mediterranean basin. With tourism rates this high there are bound to be multiple negative environmental impacts in the region.

I grew up on a small island roughly 120 miles east from the coast of Barcelona – in the heart of the Mediterranean sea, where tourism accounts for more than 75% of the total economic output. I was truly able to witness first hand the damages we as a human species do to this planet for the benefit of an economy. 

This beautiful island naturally became a tourist hotspot for many people in European countries. As they can get on a 2hr plane ride, live in paradise for a week or two, and then return to their home country with no regard for their ecological footprint. 

As a resident of the island and a lover of the sea I took it as my responsibility to volunteer for multiple beach clean ups. During these beach clean ups it would be a team of as many people as we could gather, and we would work in groups of 5-6 zoning off specific areas of the beach where different teams would work at collecting all types of plastic. The plastic was then given to another group which would audit what different types of plastic were collected and categorized into groups for proper recycling.

 When I participated in these clean ups, I noticed that the most common pollutant I would see were plastic cigarette butts. These butts may be tiny and go unnoticed in the sand however they contain hundreds of toxic chemicals and are primarily made of cellulose acetate, a man-made plastic material. The cellulose acetate acts as a filter for nicotine, multiple heavy metals such as but not exclusively, lead, mercury and nickel and many toxins, including formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia. So when a person smokes a cigarette they are trapping these toxins in the filter and then throwing them to sit there and leach into the sand or water, causing detrimental damage to the environment and animal populations. 

Finding out these impacts that the cigarette tips had on the ecosystem I questioned why there were so many of them and why so many ended up on our beaches and in our water rather than in the garbage. From a National Geographic study an estimated third of all cigarettes make it to the trash, that means 2 out of 3 cigarettes get flicked away. I then found that on a global scale an estimated 1.69 billion pounds of cigarette filters wound up as toxic waste in our environment. To put this into comparison I calculated how many lbs of plastic straws were thrown away in a year and it is astonishing how much greater the amount of cigarette butt waste is. A rough 160 million lbs of plastic straws are thrown away each year this does not even contribute ⅕ of the amount of cigarette waste in a year. So why are we constantly told to avoid plastic straws but no action has been taken to reduce the amount of cigarette waste? I believe that there are bigger elements at work here, greenwashing the population for their own companies’ financial benefit. 

 

Riding The Wave

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I have always loved the ocean and have surfed almost my whole life. So keeping it clean is my main focus. The Surfrider Foundation is a nonprofit that does just that. I have been a part of this foundation for a while now. My dad was the first one to show it to me because we have surfed together forever so he thought it would get my attention seeing how I am into a greener healthier earth. Their website has many different categories. When first going onto their website they give you their daily news update. Todays news is about a major oil spill thats had been cast off Orange County and then it gives you the option to read more or donate to help clean it up. This off the bat shoes how much they want people to get involved which really interests me. I love to be apart of something that you know is actually trying their hardest to make an impact on our generation. This foundation fights for plastic pollution, which I will get into soon enough, ocean protection, beach access, coastal preservation, and lastly clean water. These all are of the same importance of course but I think that focusing on plastic pollution can help al lot of their problems.

I know This foundation focuses on many qualities of life, but plastic pollution is their big portion of it. They give you many facts to inform you on how much plastic goes to waste, big contributors, and how others can get involved to help clean up. Their website is full of details on anything you would want to know about plastic waste especially in the ocean.

Over 11 million tons of plastic fill the ocean to this day. But this foundation has done a lot to help work for a better cause. They have been taking on plastic waste for over a decade and have 2k beach cleanups to this date. Out of those cleanups, they have cleaned up 650,000 pounds of trash. This also couldn’t have been possible without all their volunteers. They have had about 100,000 volunteers getting involved to help clean these beaches so none of this could have been possible without them. They have put in tons of effort and encourage people to donate or volunteer whenever possible. Their website makes this easy too. If you need to donate there is a button on their page that gives you easy access and if wanting to volunteer, you can find any place close to you and do a beach cleanup for the day. Their website also does offer clothes and accessories that show your support and spread awareness to others. And another plus to buying these promotional shirts and things is that all their money from this goes to help protect the oceans and beaches. They have reached to very broad audiences, so it is a very popular nonprofit foundation. If you ever want to get involved just check out their website and start to help keep our earth clean and healthy.

A Step Forward

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Plastics are an everlasting problem on our earth. They pollute environments, kill animals, and the production for plastics themselves are very harmful. Throughout the United States, governments and regular people have been trying to make progress to cleaning up the earth and stopping the use of single use plastics. Although there does not seem to be like much progress has been done, there were two bills just approved in California, that now need to approved by Governor Gavin Newsom, that are monumental for the reduction of single-use plastics. These two bills are briefly talked about in an article written by the plastic and ocean cleanup organization, Oceana.

The first bill is Assembly Bill 962. This bill is step forward for reusable bottles in California and hopefully getting rid of single-use plastic bottles. This bills main point is that instead of requiring that glass single-use bottles be crushed for recycling, that they can instead be preserved, washed, and refilled. This will help to reduce glass waste and also allow for more jobs to be provided in California. The urging for people to use reusable glass bottles may also reduce the amount of single use plastics throughout the state. Stated in the same article by Oceana, a 20% increase in use of refillable beverage bottles in place of single-use plastic bottles could keep up to 13.5 billion plastic bottles out of the ocean every year. This would be a huge leap forward in the reduction of plastics use and could also help to kickstart other states to do the same.

The second bill that is trying to be passed is Assembly Bill 1276. This bill focuses on the use of single-use plastic utensils. These utensils, such as forks, spoons, and knives are commonly on the top ten items found at beach cleanups and are often not wanted by the customers ordering the food. This bill is trying to be passed to stop this. The bill proposes that plastic forks, spoons, knives, straws, and condiment packets only be provided to the customer if the specifically request for the items. This would allow for a great step towards reducing the majority of single-use plastics that are most commonly used. Many people do not use nor want the utensils anyways, so the utensils are thrown out without second thought. This bill would help to greatly eliminate this.

This article was written to inform the general public about what is going on in the world. Mainly targeting the Californian citizens, this article was written to push the agenda of reducing single-use plastics throughout the state and throughout the world. This is not a bad agenda though, and hopefully more people around the world will become more aware of their consumption and also push their governments to pass similar bills. Although these bills are not worldwide, they provided a positive outlook and some hope to the people who are following and supporting the banning of single use plastics. With more support and sharing of information like this, we may be able to start a more common movement to help make the earth healthier and clean our environment from plastics.

 

OUR Plastic Ocean

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I watched a documentary on Netflix titled, “A Plastic Ocean.” It is a Netflix Original film directed by the Australian journalist Craig Leeson. In this documentary, Craig Lesson set out on a journey to to film proof of a solid mass of plastic waste in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch; however, he and his partner, Tanya Streeter, realized that their footage was a lot less solid and a whole lot more micro.

A Plastic Ocean | Netflix

At the beginning of filming, Leeson and Streeter believed that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to be a solid heap of waste. They soon discovered that it is mostly made up of microplastics. Microplastics are just small broken down pieces of plastic that may have been solid at one point. They can be much more dangerous than large plastic waste items because fish, whales, and other marine organisms often mistake them for food. In turn, dolphins, sharks, seals, and other marine predators digest prey that is full of extremely toxic contaminants.

In the filming of this documentary, clips of beautiful and vibrant marine ecosystems are coupled with contrast footage of heavily polluted cities and waterways. This sends viewers the message that our plastic waste is destroying our environment as well as the many environments of our fellow animals. “A Plastic Ocean” also reflects on the inequalities of society and how those inequalities affect pollution in developing countries.

A Plastic Ocean: a film review | - | LearnEnglish

Throughout the documentary, Leeson and Streeter travel to different Gyres across the Earth’s five oceans to film the devastating affects of plastic pollution. They are joined by many world experts on pollution in the gyres, including Dr. Bonnie Monteleone, who joined them in their expedition to the South Pacific Gyre. Along with the team, she collected numerous plastic samples from the South Pacific to quantify the growth of plastic marine debris compared to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Ocean conservation starts at home - Lumina News

Many of the people involved in this documentary are marine conservationists, marine biologists, or marine conservation filmmakers. Therefore, their message is undeniably biased toward protecting marine life and getting rid of plastic. Bias is often seen as having a negative impact when trying to convey a message, but in this instance I believe that their bias allows them to be much more knowledgable. They attempt to study their opinions and biases in a scientific manner instead of basing their message on ideas alone.

This film opened my eyes to the truth within plastic pollution and the immense impact it has had and is continuing to have on Earth. The quantity of plastic that floats on top of the ocean is nearly immeasurable and the effect it has is the same. As an inhabitant of earth, I hope that more people watch documentaries such as these and reflect on their own negative earthly impacts.

Green Business Feature: Next Four Co.

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For my blog, I reached out to a business to learn about its sustainability efforts. I fortunately got the pleasure to chat with a sophomore at College of Charleston named Evie Purcell who has been running her business Next Four Co since March of 2020. Evie Purcell started her business when she saw people trying to make college gear and simply thought that she could do it better. Her company started small with simple shirts, press-on letters, and the audience of her friends. She created an Instagram account and started to gain local interest during quarantine. As Next Four Co started to grow, Evie was able to invest in better equipment along with creating new designs from photoshop. Evie says that growing her business in the early stages was hard work and a lot of trial and error. From the jump, Next Four Co makes items to order which is one of the ways that her company has been able to stay sustainable. This essentially means that Evie won’t make items unless she knows that they will be bought. This leaves zero room for overproduction or clothing waste. Next Four Co almost never uses plastic packaging for their orders. The majority of the time, Evie is able to hand the orders directly to the customer which doesn’t involve any packaging. If packaging is needed, Evie likes to use reusable paper bags or brown paper lunch bags. Next Four Co also orders out of the United States for their materials to continue to push efforts of keeping transportation emissions low and the company sustainable.

More recently, Next Four Co has started making strides to become even more sustainable. Evie says that after having conversations with her roommate and friends from home she realized that she should broaden her business to create options for people who prefer to buy sustainably. For her sustainability initiative, instead of buying shirts from a big company, Evie goes to thrift stores and picks out second-hand clothing items to transform into Next Four Co gear. Although this does add extra time and effort into the production process, Evie says that she finds thrifting fun and rewarding. 

Next Four Co has been inspired by big companies such as Billabong and Patagonia. Billabong uses recycled material for some of its wetsuits and bathing suits. Evie is working on replicating this process by using the thrifted items to create new Next Four Co products. Patagonia has a lifetime guarantee and is willing to revamp clothing if the product’s condition wears down. Although Evie doesn’t exactly have the ability to revamp worn-down Next Four Co items, she has talked to some of her customers and has heard things like “I will be wearing this in the retirement home”. So even though Evie can’t provide a lifetime guarantee, she knows that people will be getting tons of use out of her products which is one of the most sustainable actions someone can do with clothing. 

It was truly an honor to talk to Evie Purcells about her journey of creating her brand. I came out of this conversation very inspired to support local and small businesses and continue to improve my sustainability efforts. It was especially impressive to see someone basically the same age as me pursue a passion while still putting the environment first. If you have any interest in supporting Evie and her company, direct message @nextfour.co on Instagram to make an order! Below is a picture of Evie wearing one of her products, along with another example of the type of apparel she can make!

The journey nd life of a Medicine Bottle

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As we are all well aware we have a lot of plastic items in our life that we deem as important to us and upon reflection and after watching the journey of a plastic bag in class I have found one of my most important plastic items I use daily is my medicine bottles I looked at all the ones I have and I saw a wide range of different types of plastic. Before I looked I believed that they would all be the same numbers for recycling and thinking this I when recycling I would put them all in the same bin but seeing this today It has taught me something new. When researching bottles similar to the ones I have I found a site where there are all types of plastic medicine bottles and it tells how they are made and after reviewing the different types of plastics I believe the plastic that is used for making medicine bottles is Polyethylene terephthalate or PET it is a hard plastic that is recyclable. This type of plastic is made in factories and is only touched by machines and only uses good raw materials to form their bottles. They then pack their bottles into sterile bags and box them and send them off for shipping. They mark on their website how long it should take them to make the order and it usually ranges from30-45 day unless there are specific time the costumer needs them.

pills

“pills” by plasticrevolver is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The usage depends on what is put into the container and how many. It also depends on how often you use what is in the container. For me a medicine container would last 60 days and I use the container everyday. Now that I am in college I will be recycling differently I will use the recycling bin down stairs that are for specific small plastic containers and hope it will be disposed of properly. At the end of its functional cycle it will depend on the person using it I already said what I would do but for others that depends entirely in them. Some may chose to throw it in with the trash others may chose to find a recycling center that the number of plastic and throw it away there so it can be reused. The environmental impact of this product during the stages of development is putting out toxic chemicals in the air when using the machines to make the plastic after its use if not disposed of properly it can damage the environment through animals eating it to it being in places it shouldn’t be and not going away.

21/365 - western medicine

“21/365 – western medicine” by jypsygen is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The social impact it has is the people who get the raw materials and their working conditions, the people who work in the factories to make sure the machines are working right and them being exposed to harmful chemicals, the people who stock them in stores and are payed not enough for the work they do, and they people who will be impacted by this product if it is not disposed of properly. This would be called the economic snapshot. Way that we can reduce this is by voting with our wallets , selecting our majors that support our ideas. My assumption based on todays world is that the youth will start the change and will enforce sustainable products throughout generations. I can always be wrong and the people who believe our world is fine how it is could take control and further damage our world causing a number of catastrophic events to occur.\

cites

Group, Foerhao. “HDPE Pharma Bottle.” Foerhao Pharmaceutical Packaging Co., Ltd., 2011, https://www.foerhao-pharmpack.com/solid-bottle/225ml-hdpe-pharma-bottle.html.

“What Materials Make up Plastic Bottles.” MJS Packaging Blog, 30 Sept. 2014, https://www.mjspackaging.com/blog/what-materials-make-up-plastic-bottles/.

Green Business Feature: MOM’s Organic Market

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Recycling rules are different everywhere, and the rules can be constantly changing. Some states and counties collect certain items, whereas others will not take it. For example, in my hometown, Fairfax, Virginia, the county does not take glass items in single stream recycling. This is because glass is heavy and it costs more to transport it. This leads to issues with recycling further down the line, because there is a surplus of glass items that have nowhere to go. For this blog entry, I decided to talk about a company located in my hometown, called “MOM’s Organic Market”. I chose this business because I worked there for about a year, and I was involved in investigating and restoring environmental issues. Their purpose is to protect and restore the environment and one of the ways they do this is through a recycling program called the “Recycle Center”. 

The idea was created by an individual who worked for the company and it has been implemented in every single one of their stores across the east coast. The Recycling Center is a wooden container with different labeled compartments that correspond with unique types of recyclable items. Since being implemented, MOM’s has recycled hundreds of tons of compost, holiday lights, natural cork, and more. A unique aspect of the company is that some locations accept items that their corresponding counties do not accept. For example, the Alexandria, Virginia location participated in a drive with The Purple Glass Bin Project. This organization collects and crushes glass (which turns to sand and gravel) in Northern Virginia, as many counties in Northern Virginia do not accept glass. Together, they recycled 822,520 pounds of glass and raised awareness throughout the state on this issue. 

MOM's Organic Market evolves as it expands to 19th location | Supermarket News

How the Recycling Center works is: you enter any of the locations along the east coast and ask where the Center is located in the store. There is no charge whatsoever to drop off recyclable goods, and you do not have to be a customer to drop off items. You then toss whatever items are recyclable, and you leave! It’s as easy as that. If you have questions about recycling, all of the employees are knowledgeable on the topic and can locate a place or organization that would take particular items. One item they do not accept is plastic grocery bags, because most places in Northern Virginia that do accept them as recycling tend to incinerate the bags, causing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. The company does not “greenwash” their sustainability goals, as the entire purpose of the business is to protect and restore the environment. The owner and founder of MOM’s is named Scott Nash and he made the business as a grocery store to pay for the real mission, which is fixing the state of the environment. The company does not provide plastic bags to customers, and they also only use solar and wind power for energy sources. This company is truly a “green” business that gives back to the planet, and their employees.   

Sources:

“Glass.” Fairfax County Virginia, https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/publicworks/recycling-trash/glass. 

Hamstra, Mark. “Mom’s Organic Market Evolves as It Expands to 19th Location.” Supermarket News, 5 June 2018, www.supermarketnews.com/organic-natural/mom-s-organic-market-evolves-it-expands-19th-location. 

“Our Purpose Is to Protect and Restore the Environment.” MOM’s Organic Market, https://momsorganicmarket.com/ourpurpose/. 

Life Cycle Assessment of a tupperware

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I use tupperwares every day to store food. I like to bake multiple loafs of bread or several servings of pasta. Then freezing individual servings in several tupperwares to eat later on in the week. The containers are durable enough to be microwaved and cleaned in a dishwasher. These properties allow me to reuse the containers for months. But eventually they ware down or break and get thrown away. What happens then? What happened before I started using the tupperware?

File:Tupperware-PP.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

When I think of a tupperware, I think of a see through plastics container with a snap on lid. But the tupperware didn’t begin it’s life as a container, it started as fossil fuels deep in the Earth. Once this oil is transported to a refinery, it is heated up and boiled. One of the many gases produced is propylene. The gas is distilled and then introduced to a catalyst where a plastic powder is made that is converted into pellets. A lot of energy and water is required to distill the gases. Water is converted to steam during the condensation part of distillation. Energy is used to boil the crude oil. Polypropylene is a relatively benign plastic with a clean manufacturing process. But the refining of crude oil releases toxic gases that can cause cancer and other health defects. Refineries are often located in poor areas which are usually populated by minority groups.

Natural PP Pellets | LNS Technologies

The plastic pellets are then shipped to a manufacturing plant. This is done often done by boat, train, or air. If these pellets were to be released during shipping they can cause damage to the environment and the communities that depend on it. The plastic is then injection molded into its desired shape and waiting distribution. Different Brands of tupperwares have different methods of distributing. The brand, “Tupperware”, uses direct selling where products are bought from their online store/catalog and shipped directly to the consumer. This method can use less energy during transportation.

When the tupperware is in my hands the product usually lasts many months, sometimes years. The plastic is very durable, easy to clean, and stores food very well. The way I clean them is a dish washer, which needs lots of water and electricity to run. However, while durable, they will not last forever. And when they are no longer useful, I throw them away. This means they are destined to an incinerator or a landfill.  Either way, the tupperwares will have environmental impacts. During combustion, CO2 will be releases and, depending on the additives or plastic, toxic gases too. CO2 is a greenhouse gas and contributes to global warming and the toxic gases can cause cancer if inhaled. In a landfill, polypropylene is prone to oxidation and easily damaged by UV light. If it were to escape the landfill, the plastic can easily breakdown and release microplastics into the environment.

Life Cycle of a Plastic Water Bottle

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Plastic surrounds us everywhere. Almost all of the products we use everyday are made from a form of plastic. As a consumer, the biggest contributor to my plastic footprint is plastic water bottles. I own a hydro flask that I fill up everyday before class, however there are days where I’m running late and will grab a plastic water bottle from the fridge. Plastic water bottles are convenient when I’m crunched for time and need to grab something on the go. Typically plastic water bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate also known as PET. PET is produced from petroleum hydrocarbons. Polyethylene terephthalate is polymerized to create molecular chains. This allows it to produce PET bottles later on. The water bottles are made by melting plastic pellets, and injecting the melted plastic into multiple-cavity molds. They are then shipped to bottling facilities.

The life cycle of a water bottle starts when it is manufactured. After, they are distributed to stores where they are sold. On average a single plastic water bottle lasts me around a few hours. Once it’s empty I try to recycle it, but if that’s not an option I throw it in the trash. If the bottle is recycled it gets shredded down into flakes, and then melted down into pellets. The pellets are then sold to companies that can melt them and turn them into different products. If the bottle doesn’t end up getting recycled it could end up in a few places. The three most common things to happen to the bottles are, they end up in a landfill, the ocean, or they get incinerated. When the bottles end up in a landfill or the ocean, the PET can take up to ten years to break down. When the plastic is in the landfills over time the toxic chemicals leach into the ground, which ultimately could end up in the water we drink. When in the ocean, the plastic affects marine ecosystems and could harm the sea life. Animals mistake the plastic as food and eat it. This is not only harmful for them, but for us too. In addition, when the plastic is incinerated it releases harmful toxins back into the atmosphere.

We are in control of our consumption of plastic. To help prevent the plastic from ending up in landfills or the ocean, it’s important to recycle or refrain from purchasing plastic bottles. There are alternative reusable water bottles that can be used to replace plastic ones.

Citations:

https://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/What_Will_Happen_if_You_Do_Not_Recycle_Plastic

https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/materials-handling/plastic-bottle-manufacturing/

The Ocean Cleanup our future solution in the fight against the plastic pollution?

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More than 5 trillion pieces of plastic currently litter the oceans, and about 8 million tons of plastic end up in our oceans each year, making up 80% of all marine debris from surface waters to deep-sea sediments. And this amount entering the ocean is expected to nearly triple to 29 million tons annually by 2040, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. Meanwhile, there are five giant plastic garbage patches in the ocean, to be exact: the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic, the North Pacific, the South Pacific, and the Indian Ocean garbage patch, which have a significant impact on the ocean. This is because not only are coasts polluted by plastic trash, but the trash also harms marine animals in particular, which can get caught in larger pieces and mistake smaller pieces for food and swallow them. Swallowing plastic particles can prevent them from digesting normal food and cause toxic chemical pollutants to build up in their organisms. Humans also ingest plastic through the food chain. The effects on health are as yet unknown.

"File:Boyan Slat (2018).jpg" by DWDD is licensed under CC BY 3.0

“File: Boyan Slat (2018).jpg” by DWDD is licensed under CC BY 3.0

 

Numerous projects and organizations are committed to combating plastic pollution in our oceans, one project that has been launched to much media attention is The Ocean Cleanup. The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization that develops advanced technologies to rid the oceans of plastic and was founded in 2013 by Boyan Slat, a 19-year-old Dutchman at the time. The goal is to remove 90% of floating plastic from the oceans by 2040.

 

The plastic catcher consists of a long tube-like or hose-like u-shaped construction made of plastic, which is supposed to be up to 600 meters long, depending on the model, and float on the sea like a crescent moon. Below it, a five-meter-long plastic curtain hangs down into the water. The plastic waste is supposed to stick to this curtain. The system should also be able to trap plastic as small as 1mm. To ensure that this floating barrier does not float in front of the garbage, but catches it, it has an anchor that hangs freely in the water at a depth of 600 meters. This slows down the floating body so that the current drive the trash in. Every few weeks, a ship is then supposed to come by and collect the trash and transport it back to shore, where it is recycled or incinerated.

May 2018 saw the first deployment, of the system after several experiments with prototypes since 2016. The system 001, about 120m long, was tested for about two weeks 90km from the Golden Gate Bridge on the open sea. However, there were some problems and the captured plastic could not be held as planned. The system collected 8.2 tons of plastic during the 120-hour deployment this August, which is less than the normal load of a garbage truck equivalent

200127 037 Maritime Museum of San Diego - Pilot boat cruise of San Diego Bay, Maersk Transporter Ocean Cleanup Vessel, designed to remove floating plastic waste from the ocean

“200127 037 Maritime Museum of San Diego – Pilot boat cruise of San Diego Bay, Maersk Transporter Ocean Cleanup Vessel, designed to remove floating plastic waste from the ocean” by cultivar413 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The project has a very ambitious goal and also brings some good points because it proposes a solution to a huge problem. It makes use of the force of the wind, waves, and currents to capture plastic on the open sea, which is almost impossible to do in any other way. It also tries to impact wildlife as little as possible, as larger marine life such as fish or turtles can dive through under the filter. Furthermore, it tries to reverse or reduce the negative effects caused by plastic.

However, there are also many negative sides and problems with the project, because first of all the project is enormously complex and extremely expensive one estimates that, one, to remove approximately 20,000 tons hundreds of million-dollar would need. In addition, the constant transportation of the ships emits a lot of exhaust gases and requires a lot of fossil fuels, which in turn are harmful to our environment. Furthermore, the system can only remove plastic with a density lower than saltwater, plastic located in the deep sea cannot be removed. And finally, recent trials have shown that the systems still have many flaws and problems and are definitely not as effective as hoped.

All in all, The Ocean Cleanup is a good idea from my point of view, but cannot be implemented in reality as it should be. In addition, the project only fights the symptom and not the cause, which gives the feeling that we as a society do not have to change anything and this way of thinking is fatal. To start at the end, when the plastic is already floating in the sea is too late – we have to focus on our general plastic handling in general.