![]() ![]() For example, some shrimp-like amphipods were carrying eggs in their brood pouches. Some species also appeared to reproduce in their new offshore home. They found traces of species normally found in coastal waters that had used floating plastic as rafts and ended up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch-in particular nets, ropes, buoys, boxes, and cylindrical eel traps from the fishing industry. Researchers at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center examined 105 pieces of plastic debris they had obtained in frozen form from TOC. “But very often, it’s marine life that does not belong there, because the plastic does not belong there.”Ī study published in mid-April offers some clues as to which traveling species could pose a problem. Is it then right or wrong to remove these invaders, who may be disrupting the local ecosystem? “There is always marine life associated with the plastic,” says Egger. If crustaceans or sea anemones from other regions cling to plastic debris and hitch a ride to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they could feed on neuston there. But it’s more complicated than simply trying to minimize the amount of marine life taken out of the ocean along with plastic, he says. “But for the initial results, we are really happy to see very little impact,” says Egger.Įgger stresses that TOC wants to make sure its plastic-cleaning efforts are helping marine life, not harming it. The data is currently being evaluated and is due to be published this year. Egger and his team have been sampling the surface water in front of and behind the cleanup system on a weekly basis to compare the composition of neuston, to understand which species to look out for, what effect the cleanup system has, and whether there are seasonal differences in how many neuston are present. In recent years, neuston have become a particular focus. We also actively contribute to the understanding of an ecosystem that we barely know,” says Matthias Egger, whose role is to conduct research that helps TOC engineers further develop and scale up its cleanup system. But as a private player operating in international waters where few rules apply, TOC is not required to publish these. “We do much more than just clean, which is difficult enough. In addition to collecting plastic, TOC conducts its own ocean research, as well as environmental impact assessments that determine and describe the potential damage of the cleanups. They then photographed 22 of these samples. They did the same in the periphery and outside the patch for comparison. Behind them they towed a small net along the surface of the water every day to take samples of floating marine life and plastic debris. A sailing crew accompanied long-distance swimmer Benoît Lecomte as he swam right through the patch. Add to this wind and swirling ocean currents, which bring plastic and neuston in from afar, and “patches” form.īack in 2019, a rare occurrence allowed Helm, who is an assistant professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, to study the contents of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s not that the plastic is somehow creating an opportunity for life to emerge, says marine biologist and corresponding author Rebecca Helm, but rather that plastic debris and organisms tend to float up and clump together in water, like cereal in a bowl. That they are, essentially, disrupting a marine habitat.Īccording to a new study, floating marine life, known as “neuston,” often ends up in the same places as plastic. But more recently, new charges have been laid at the door of TOC: that its cleanup efforts are capturing not only plastic but also sea creatures that live among it. To Boyan Slat, the founder of TOC, this cleanup work “signifies an age in which we’re starting to correct the problems we ourselves have created.” To TOC’s critics, the project is costly and inefficient-a distraction from the root of the problem, which is too much plastic being discarded and not enough preventing it from getting into the sea. In this area, which is roughly three times the size of France, at least 400 times the amount of plastic extracted by TOC remains, to which more is added every day as it is discarded from boats or flows into the sea from rivers. Since 2021, the nonprofit has recovered 200 tons of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area between California and Hawaii that is notorious for its floating waste, which is concentrated there by ocean currents. The Ocean Cleanup (TOC) is the world’s largest organization working to remove floating plastic from the ocean. But they’re aiming to catch something else: plastic. ![]() You could be forgiven for thinking they are trawlers. Pulled behind them is a giant U-shaped barrier, which almost looks like a fishing net. ![]() In the northern Pacific Ocean, two sky-blue ships are sailing parallel to one another, several hundred meters apart. ![]()
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