And even if that doesn't happen, getting rid of even a small amount of pollutants from the ocean can't be a bad thing, can it?
Imagine how much plastic is in one garbage truck, now chop it up into small, 5cm bits. Now spread it across a beach, try to pick that up. It takes all day.
We need machines to help us.
However, on the beach near me, there isn't much garbage. And pretty much any day I go, there is a group of students picking up garbage on the beach. When I used to work at the school, each home room would have beach days where they go and pick up garbage. And each club has beach days where they go and pick up garbage.
I live on Suruga bay, so it's not right on the Pacific and I'm sure that cuts down a lot of the garbage. But just with the local high school sending 20 people down there practically every day, it seems to keep it under control.
It's one of those cultural things. There is garbage everywhere because we don't have a culture to clean it up. We feel like we shouldn't have to. We feel like it should be someone else's job. Maybe that's true and maybe it's not, but a consistent effort by a small group of people can make a big difference.
If you separate it by type and size properly it can just be sold/recycled.
While it could be commercially viable I do think money should be pumped in from other sources. Preferably from [remaining] industries creating and using the materials found.
Ours are rocks, cliffs, deep bays, long sandy beaches that there is no way in hell they'd allow diggers or tractors on (conservation sites)
I suspect most of the concerns are stemming from how quickly they are trying to move. The apparent afterthought of how this will impact wildlife while collating the debris, and early failed trials with mild weather. These are good critiques. I'd like to see answers for those issues, out a plan proposed to investigate and about for these concerns. I don't think it's reasonable to push all of that on a company that's trying, without offering some support or an alternative.
Also, re: adding more plastic than was removed:
While that may be technically correct if it doesn’t work, the way I see it is this:
-this project:
-potential benefit to the oceans: high
-potential risk to the ocean: comparatively low
—99.9% of companies we debate about on this site:
-potential benefit to the oceans: zero
-potential risk to the oceans (assume here we are talking about any company that creates or purchases, directly or indirectly, any kind of plastic): high
On that alone, it seems like the risks far outweigh the benefits.
I also think if you think about the types of companies you see created every day: delivery services, manufactured products of any kind etc. All those companies have the externality of potential plastic waste. For example a delivery startup is going to be purchasing plastic spoons or plastic food boxes. No one is sitting around criticizing them for potentially adding plastic to the oceans. We all talk about economics and scale and product and software. But that company is almost certainly adding to the growing problem of plastic in the oceans without providing any upside.
Meanwhile this company is proposing launching large objects that could become waste in the oceans, yes. Although they are satellite tracked and I’m sure could be removed easily. But the upside is removing way more waste than they are discharging. So it seems worth the risk to me.