MOUNTAIN VIEW >> A nascent effort to clean up the so-called “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” took a step forward last week with the first ever aerial reconnaissance mission over the swirling mass of plastic debris between Hawaii and California.
The Dutch foundation behind the mission, The Ocean Cleanup, is using Moffett Field in Mountain View as its base of operations. A second flight is scheduled to take place this week.
On Monday, the foundation said its Hercules C-130, outfitted with experimental plastic scanning equipment and a team of expert spotters, detected 1,000-plus items over the course of its maiden 2½-hour flight along the northern boundary of the patch.
The aerial reconnaissance missions follow the foundation’s Mega Expedition in 2015, which involved 30 vessels and measured plastic up to 0.5 millimeters/1.5 inches in size. There were signs of a significant mass of plastic even larger than that, including discarded fishing nets, and flights were deemed necessary to accurately quantify the amount.
In addition to confirming the abundance of plastic sized 0.5 millimeters/1.5 inches and up, the flight also found more debris that is expected to exist in the heart of the accumulation zone.
The results of the aerial reconnaissance missions will be combined with data collected during the Mega Exploration in a peer-reviewed scientific paper, according to the foundation. The information will be used to develop cleanup technology such as booms that act as artificial coastlines and use ocean currents to scour plastic debris from the water.
“The Aerial Expedition — our final reconnaissance mission — brings us another step closer to the cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” said Boyan Slat, who founded The Ocean Cleanup in 2013, when he was 17. “The initial findings of the expeditions again underline the urgency to tackle the growing accumulation of plastic in the world’s oceans.”
