Pacific cleanup set to start in 2018

On May 11th during The Next Phase event, we finally unveiled what we have been covertly working on for the past two years; an improvement to our design that will enable us to start extracting plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within the next 12 months. This design improvement also increases the efficiency of the system; we estimate to be able to remove half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in just 5 years.

The design improvement entails making the cleanup system mobile. Rather than fixing a system to the seabed at great depths, we will use sea anchors to ensure our systems move slower than the plastic. The cleanup will be carried out by a fleet of systems, rather than one massive system.

This new technology and the successful funding round announced, enable us to accelerate production, deployment and the extraction of plastic from the ocean. The first pilot parts are now in production and testing of the pilot will start off the American west coast by the end of 2017. With the first deployment in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the first half of 2018, we will start cleaning up two years ahead of schedule. See our announcement in full below:

Find out more about our design improvement on our technology page: