After a viral Ted Talk and a successful Kickstarter campaign, a team of scientists and volunteers are trying to make headway on the cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In a previous blog I talked about trash in our ocean, so to follow-up I would like to spotlight the strides being made by The Ocean Cleanup; Boyan Slat started the group to combat the growing garbage dump. The team who recently returned to San Francisco’s Piers 30-32 will have a report published by mid-2016 and the technology should begin working by 2020.

Concerns of the plastic having time to breakdown into small pieces, which are accidentally consumed by the lower members on the food chain, encourage the team to move as quickly as possible. Though many groups have proposed plastic taxes and other measures for discouraging its use, we are still left with the conundrum of how to dispose of this toxic material. Funding from tech billionaires, like Benioff of Salesforce.com, will provide resources to develop necessary technology to support the mission of The Ocean Cleanup. Stay tuned to hear the findings from the research trip!