Recruiting public to solve plastic crisis

The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch non-profit that develops and scales technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic, is calling on offshore sailors between California and Hawaii to take part in its research expedition to help map plastic in The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP).

The GPGP is the world’s largest accumulation of floating plastic, and by recruiting people willing to fit AI cameras and use GPS trackers while transiting the Pacific Ocean, the organization seeks to improve their understanding of the patch’s composition to help future cleanup efforts.

Estimated to contain around 200 million pounds of plastic, the GPGP covers an area twice the size of Texas and is mostly comprised of ghost nets and other fishing gear, complemented by a wide array of plastic pieces dating back to the 1960s. The Ocean Cleanup has removed more than one million pounds of trash from the GPGP over the past four years.

Those taking part will be given an AI camera called an Automatic Debris Imaging System (ADIS), which gets installed at the highest possible point to face the ocean surface.

The lightweight cameras take photos of plastics afloat at sea and send the data back to The Ocean Cleanup HQ in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. This will enable the organization to map plastic hotspot concentrations and use predictive software to track their movement using ocean circulation, wave, and wind data.

Additionally, another way that boats can help is by using GPS tracking buoys, to tag lost, or abandoned, fishing gear and ghost nets. This will also help track and model where these large items are floating and pinpoint them for smart, targeted, future cleanup efforts. As a ghost net hunter, participants will be asked to attach the trackers to abandoned fishing gear found at sea and release them.

“The GPGP is an ever-moving plastic soup that is impeding the ocean’s ability to help regulate the climate and is harmful to marine life,” said Laurent Lebreton, Head of Research at The Ocean Cleanup.

“Technology has a big part to play in the future ocean cleanup. The strategic integration of remote sensing from ships, drones, and satellites as well as the use of AI and particularly machine learning can revolutionize the detection, tracking, and removal of plastic debris.

“To help us better target our extraction operations and clean up the patch more effectively and economically, we need to understand where the high concentrations of plastic are located. The sailing community can become citizen scientists and boost our efforts to solve this environmental crisis by signing up and being part of the solution.”

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