A complete cleanup of a gyre is unrealistic, but calculations show we can clean up 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 5 years from the deployment of our systems. To ensure we clean up as much plastic as possible, source reduction initiatives will need to continue to occur simultaneously.
Due to our continued extraction of plastic the concentration of plastic decreases, meaning that the cost of collection per kilo increases. Hence, we have to calculate how long it will be financially viable to keep the systems deployed, although the goal is to clean up as much as possible.