Meh, I thought Joe failed to ask any tough (but obvious) questions, like for an economic comparison between collection and prevention. The technologically easiest and no doubt cheapest solution is to tax plastic production. Ideally this would help shift us towards greener alternatives (corn based, silica based, paper based, reusables, etc). The revenues can go towards cleanup. I bet we could spend less money to get the same amount of used plastic if we simply paid Kuala Lumpur for their trash. Sounds a bit ludicrous but better than converting the world's waterways into a conveyor belt for trash.

We simply don't have the political will though. So that will fail and so will this.