Trials Complete, the Ocean Cleanup Is Now Headed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Once again, naysayers are being proven wrong.

When we first started covering The Ocean Cleanup's audacious plan to tackle The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, some of our readers were less than convinced:

"Stupid idea. Bad science," said one particular commenter.

Yet Boyan Slat and his team have persisted, and a few weeks ago they launched array 001 from San Francisco and headed out for a couple weeks of open ocean trials to see if their design really could operate out in the wild.

Well, the results of those trials are now in. There was some minor damage noted to the skirt of the array (most likely done during transportation, not operation). And there was also one instance where floating buoys—used to imitate the movement of plastic litter—moved away, rather than toward, the center of the array.

But overall, the team has declared the trials a success. And while they continue to explore and seek to correct the above-mentioned complications, they are now officially headed out to The Great Pacific Garbage Patch to begin the real work of actual cleanup.

I wish them every success in the world.