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Dan Haifley, Ocean Backyard: Can the Pacific’s plastic wasteland be fixed?

Posted by: Maven on May 31, 2009 at 7:12 am

From columnist Dan Haifley and the Silicon Valley Mercury News:

Project Kaisei is the name bestowed on a fledgling effort — which has its skeptics — to capture plastic waste caught in giant swirling gyres in the north Pacific and turn it into diesel fuel. It is derived from “Kaisei” — an ancient Japanese term for ocean planet.

To be successful the project would have to sweep an area twice the size of Texas, which is alternately called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the plastic vortex, or the plastic continent. It would be a massive undertaking in a harsh environment.

Over 100 million tons of waste reside there — it’s where much of the junk floating down our streams and rivers winds up. Once on the high seas, plastic becomes degraded by the sun and saltwater, breaking it into tiny particles which mostly become embedded below the ocean’s surface.

This June the 151-foot Japanese sailing vessel “Kaisei,” operated by a California-based conservation group called the Ocean Voyages Institute, will unfurl its sails in San Francisco and head seaward to assess how to implement the project. The flagship will be joined by a decommissioned fishing trawler with specialized nets. If they are successful, the next step will be to capture and process the waste.

Read more of Dan’s column from the Silicon Valley Mercury News by clicking here.

May 31, 2009 · Filed Under Oceans & Beaches

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