Friday JohnKu – AKA -TGIF – Fri-Yay/Goodnews

~ John W. Howell

Our Good news comes from the Goodnews Network. I have reported on this ocean cleanup system before, and now there is more good news. Here’s the story in its entirety, with major typos corrected.

Boyan Slat, Founder of The Ocean Cleanup, and Joe Gebbia, Co-Founder of Airbnb – Released

Ocean Cleanup Nonprofit Gets $25Mil From Airbnb Co-Founder to Launch Massive Plastic Pollution Cleanup.

By Andy Corbley

The co-founder of Airbnb.org has just donated $25 million to support the Dutch nonprofit The Ocean Cleanup as they prepare to assemble and deploy the largest plastic capture system ever developed for use in the ocean.

The Ocean Cleanup’s pilot-scale ocean cleaning system, System 002, has been deployed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) located between Hawai’i and California since late 2021. It has so far removed close to 200,000 kilograms, or roughly 440,000 pounds, of plastic that otherwise would have remained trapped for decades or more.

“I’m proud to partner with The Ocean Cleanup in their crucial work to remove harmful plastics from our oceans,” said Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb and Samara. “The Ocean Cleanup has created systems and technology that actually work at scale. In order for them to deploy across our oceans and rivers, they now need to scale their funding. It is my hope that this donation can inspire others to act.”

As the only group currently cleaning the trillions of plastic pieces in the GPGP, The Ocean Cleanup has streamlined its cleaning systems to be as cost-effective as possible, allowing their entirely not-for-profit income generation and any potential donations to go far.

Dutch wiz kid and Ocean Cleanup founder Boyan Slat has been developing the capture system for a decade and has gradually enlarged and improved it based on fieldwork harvesting plastic from the GPGP. System 03 cleans ten times faster than the previous system and could clean all the plastic patches of the world’s oceans with about 10-50 systems.

“Joe’s continued support of The Ocean Cleanup’s mission has a direct impact on our operations all over the world,” said Slat. “Thanks, in part, to his generous assistance, we are able to scale up our work in oceans and rivers, helping us reach our goal of ridding the world’s oceans of plastic. On behalf of the world’s largest ecosystem, we are immensely grateful for the support.”

Slat’s work in the GPGP will go down as one of the greatest accomplishments in the 21st century. In front of him was a true leviathan of a problem—a patch of plastic trash twice the size of Texas swirling in International Waters where even the loudest climate-hollering nation-state had no desire to even crack an idea about how to clean it.

Relying only on his team and his vision of basic scientific deduction and elegant engineering solutions, Slat proved that the most absurd problem was nevertheless solvable.

His vision attracted millions in private contributions from philanthropists like Gebbia, even while government scientists sneered at his use of fossil-fuel vessels to pull the nets to capture the plastic.

Here is a photo of the system.

Photo courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup

The good news here is that with additional funding, the oceans become closer to being cleaned. Today’s Johnku talks about this important project.

Funding by John W. Howell © 2023

To finally conquer,

The oceans plastic problem . . .

Money speaks loudly.

I hope you have a great weekend.

 

77 thoughts on “Friday JohnKu – AKA -TGIF – Fri-Yay/Goodnews”

  1. Thanks, dear John, great to read that the problem of plastic in the oceans could be solved. Now the money to do so is needed. It’s a pity although we live at the sea, nobody has heard about this project here. It needs a better PR.
    Have a great weekend as well
    The Fab Four of Cley
    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  11. I love this story so much, though the end irritated me. OF COURSE the government would be critical without even trying to solve the issue. Thank God that didn’t stop them from moving forward.

    Thanks, John. And happy weekend.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. From day one, when he killed the Keystone Pipeline. I grew up in a fossil-fuel forward community. You know how PA is; that’s where all the industry was back in the day.

        I’m all for being environmentally friendly, but there has to be a sensible transition. You can’t do it overnight.

        Liked by 1 person

  12. This is good news for sure. The problem is, what will be done with all the plastic they collect? For Ocean also collects plastic, country by country, and turns it into jewelry to fund their operation. We need some plastic-eating bacteria.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Hi John, I was shocked the first time I saw online how much plastic has accumulated in this part of the ocean. So nice to see these efforts. Thanks for sharing this story and I hope you have a nice weekend!

    Liked by 1 person

  23. I’ve heard that Boyan was only 16 when he developed this. Either way, it’s encouraging to see that the future generation is making a huge effort to clean up the mess. Thanks for sharing, John.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. This is great!
    I should look them up on line. I’d like to know what they do with all the plastic they clean up. Is it recyclable?
    Your Haiku is versatile. I like it!

    Liked by 1 person

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