# The Ocean Cleanup \[The Great Pacific Garbage Patches\]
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [November 5, 2021, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838 "2021-11-05T14:47:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2021, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838/1 "2021-11-05T14:47:30Z")
7 years ago we had a thread on this project:
> [@Another "Solar Roadways"? "19-Year-Old Figured Out How To Clean Up The Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch"](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-solar-roadways-19-year-old-figured-out-how-to-clean-up-the-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch/690336/):
>
> This video is all over the web. [[- YouTube] ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTGqP8wjfiU) George Takei is pushing it on Facebook. And, of course, it’s raising money through crowdfunding. I’m skeptical. The idea is pretty straighforward, but I question the 10 year timeline, whether or not it’s cost effective, and whether the environmental impact would be as bad or worse than that of the plastic.
Today I randomly found this:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tt88hdVCpo)
So this project is ongoing, and some sort of test is complete. Looking at the video though, I’m skeptical. The trash they collected in their test all looks like giant pieces of plastic, while my understanding of the garbage patch is that it’s mostly tiny bits. Were they actually cleaning up The Great Pacific Garbage Patch in their test? Does their system have any effect on tiny bits of plastic?
What do you all think? Is this a scam 7 years in the running as it seems most posters apparently thought it was 7 years ago? Is this a legitimate and useful approach?
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2021, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838/2 "2021-11-05T14:57:11Z")
I don’t have the answers but this should help:
> **[Garbage Patches | OR&R's Marine Debris Program](https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/patch.html)**
>
> Learn more about what garbage patches are, their impacts on the ocean, and what we can do about them.
Keep in mind the Pacific alone has two large patches and there are others in the Indian and Atlantic.
Cleaning seems implausible and would only address the larger debris.
The new laws in the US stopping plastic straws and bags should help.
A continued reduction of dumping garbage by the barge load into the Oceans need to continue. We should already be at a 100% ban. But we’re not.
I added to the title to make the subject clearer.
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### Author:  [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2021, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838/3 "2021-11-05T14:57:19Z")
When this was all over my twitter feed a few weeks ago I read what seems like fair criticism of the project, but I’m not immediately finding those sources now. A joke version I saw was that it’s like applying a band aid when the trouble is you are getting lashed. Not much point to it until you stop the lashings. I think it’s a waste of the fossil fuels these trawlers burn while collecting the plastics.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2021, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838/4 "2021-11-05T14:58:17Z")
Additional existing thread:
> [@How Can We Reduce the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-reduce-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch/779832/21):
>
> Wasn’t my post - just one in which I clicked on the links. The second link, if you hover your cursor over it, contains Boyan Slat’s name.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2021, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838/5 "2021-11-05T15:00:09Z")
> **[The Dream of Scooping Plastic From the Ocean Is Still Alive—and Problematic](https://gizmodo.com/the-dream-of-scooping-plastic-from-the-ocean-is-still-a-1847890573)**
>
> "They spent I don’t know how many tens of millions of dollars to invent fishing."
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### Author:  [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2021, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838/6 "2021-11-05T15:04:56Z")
> [@tofor](#):
>
> The trash they collected in their test all looks like giant pieces of plastic, while my understanding of the garbage patch is that it’s mostly tiny bits.
Many (most?) of the micro-plastics in the ocean used to be large plastic bits in the ocean. And while microplastics in the ocean aren’t great, large fish and aquatic mammals aren’t getting tangled up in them. So this can still be a win, even if it isn’t going to solve everything. But yeah, stopping the flow of new plastics into the ocean is obviously necessary.
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### Author:  [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2021, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838/7 "2021-11-05T15:09:11Z")
How big are these plastic garbage patches in the ocean?
2x the size of Texas? Baffling. And sad.
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838/8 "2021-11-05T15:22:56Z")
> [@Bullitt](#):
>
> 2x the size of Texas?
C’mon now. Nothing’s bigger than Texas!
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838/9 "2021-11-05T17:55:45Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> The new laws in the US stopping plastic straws and bags should help.
“Banning” plastic straws (which are still widely available even in cities where they are ostensibly “banned”) and even the [existential horror of poltergeist-possessed plastic shopping bags ‘artistically’ videoed by creepy teenager drug dealers](https://youtu.be/Qssvnjj5Moo) does virtually nothing to reduce non-biodegradable waste in packaging. Walk into your local grocery store and you’ll see that virtually everything except for produce and bulk items are packaged in nonbio/photoegradable plastic and extruded polystyrene, and even your bulk items typically get packaged in plastic bags. Pretty much any other consumable product you buy is also packaged using plastic wrap, and of course nearly anything shipped from online retailers like Amazon is not only wrapped in plastic but protected by plastic bubble wrap, and even if only a tiny fraction of it doesn’t make it to a landfill, it is still enough to keep the oceans well-populated with floating trash.
The real hazard to wildlife (and use), however are the raw nurdles used to make injected and formed plastic products. These shed microscopic fragments of plastic that are absorbed by animals, especially marine life, and then carried through the food chain. Getting rid of these is virtually impossible, and plastic manufacturers are understandibly unwilling to treat raw plastics as the essential toxic waste that they are, so they are not carefully processed and handled to prevent releasing this material the way we handle toxic elements such as chromium or lead.
Banning straws and shopping bags is literally a feel-good solution that makes virtually no difference in the context over overall environmental contamination. You can use all of the corn starch utensils and compostable straws that you like, but it isn’t abating the problem.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2021, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ocean-cleanup-the-great-pacific-garbage-patches/953838/10 "2021-11-17T23:16:34Z")
Adding to the problem are the effects of the pandemic. I’ve been having my groceries delivered, which means that they come in plastic bags instead of the reusable bags I used in the past.
Add to that the extra PPE and syringes and other equipment that are being disposed of.
It seems to be an almost intractable problem. And then there’s climate change…