Ocean Plastic Within Reachable Cleanup Depths
Back to updatesA study published today in the journal Biogeosciences is reporting the first-ever high-resolution vertical profiles of plastic pollution in the so-called “ocean garbage patches”.
“Almost all plastic was on or very close to the surface, meaning it’s within reachable distances for a cleanup operation”, said Boyan Slat, founder of The Ocean Cleanup and co-author of the study.
The data used in this study was collected in May 2014 during The Ocean Cleanup’s third expedition to the North Atlantic Garbage Patch, in which a device called a Multi-Level Trawl was used to measure plastic concentration in 10 layers simultaneously.
Preliminary results, taken during The Ocean Cleanup’s first two expeditions, were featured in the Feasibility Study published last year.
The next expedition studying the vertical distribution of plastic in the world’s oceans will leave St Maarten on March 5th.
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