ALAMEDA — An innovative system aimed at sweeping up the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” — a massive vortex of plastic drifting between California and Hawaii — will be launched from Alameda later this year.
The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit headquartered in the Netherlands, will use a floater attached to a screen under the water, which if all goes according to plan will concentrate the debris and allow it to be collected.
An anchor will be suspended below the equipment at about 2,000 feet, making the system move with the Pacific Ocean’s current slower than the debris and so easier to gather up.
The Dutch company was founded in 2013 by Boyan Slat, when he was just 18.
The “garbage patch” between California and Hawaii is the largest of five in the world’s oceans, where currents and tides cause plastic and other material to concentrate. Other spots are between Australia and Africa and off the coast of South America.
The Bay Area launch will be the environmental company’s first, and it will take place off what’s known as the Seaplane Lagoon at the former Alameda Naval Air Station. The target date is June or July.
“Next to Alameda’s major historical military significance, it was here that the famous car chase scene in ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ was filmed, and it was home to some of the best experiments of my favorite childhood TV show, ‘MythBusters,'” Slat said. “We’re honored to be allowed to use this site as the assembly yard for the world’s first ocean clean-up system. Hopefully, we will make some history here as well.”
Once the approximately 2,000 foot-long system is assembled, it will be lowered into the lagoon, then towed to the Pacific Ocean for the massive undertaking.
The assembly phase — some sections are about 250 feet long — is expected to begin next month and will be followed by tests before the launch.
“Not only does the sheltered water provide direct access to the ocean, but the Seaplane Lagoon outside this former naval air station has shallow water that makes it an ideal spot to place our system in the water,” said Rachel Richardson, a company spokeswoman.
After the concentrated plastic is swept up from from the Pacific Ocean, it will be brought back to shore for recycling and then sold, with the revenue used to fund clean-up in other ocean areas.
Alameda officials announced that The Ocean Cleanup was leasing a spot at the former Navy base, now known as Alameda Point, on Tuesday.
“I love the concept, as I know Alamedans and those throughout the Bay Area and world will, and am very hopeful that it will help clean the oceans in turn,” Mayor Trish Spencer said.
The lease terms were not disclosed. But the Dutch company announced in May of last year that it had raised $31 million since 2013 to test and launch its technology. Donors include Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce, and Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal.
There are an estimated five trillion pieces of plastic in the world’s oceans, which once trapped in one of the five gyres can break down into microplastics and then are often eaten by wildlife, according to The Ocean Cleanup.
The company estimates it can collect up to 50 percent of the material in the Pacific Ocean in five years.
