Ocean cleanup device successfully collects plastic for first time

Please upvote and throw some VC money on it.

We desperately need this and not Uber or WeWork (albeit market and marketing say different).

Great achievement.

https://theoceancleanup.com/

One of the worst things about the internet is that a couple of months ago, when the Ocean Cleanup Project was having some problems, there were several quadrillion articles posted, from comments on social media to entire news articles, calling it a failure and scam.

Including on Hacker News.

Now that it is working the crickets in here are deafening.

Take this comment, which is the top search result for "ocean cleanup project site:news.ycombinator.com":

> The Ocean Cleanup Project is essentially a scam at this point. It can't work for numerous ecological (scoops up ocean life) and engineering (the ocean is HUGE, corrosive, and violent) reasons. Not to mention that ocean microplastics are distributed throughout the first 100 meters of ocean water, and this goes nowhere near that deep. Of course, they dismiss these concerns or deflect with scientific BS (which the media gobbles up) whenever they are brought up.

>They can't get this to work on such a minuscule scale in placid water off the coast of the Netherlands, it won't work in the North Pacific on a far grander scale.

If the internet had been around in 1903:

>The Wright Brothers are essentially a scam at this point. Their airplane won't work for numerous technological and engineering reasons. Not to mention the sky is huge and the plane only flew for 3.5 seconds and was damaged upon landing. Of course, they dismiss these concerns or deflect with scientific BS whenever they are brought up.

>If they can't get more than a THIRTY SEVEN METERS in the placid air on the coast of North Carolina, airplanes won't work in the turbulent winds of other regions on earth.

That’s really great! Cause this is a serious problem and we must solve it anyway.