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Trash accumulates in five ocean garbage patches, the largest one being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California. If left to circulate, the plastic will impact our ecosystems, health, and economies. Solving it requires a combination of closing the source, and cleaning up what has already accumulated in the ocean. Cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch using conventional methods - vessels and nets - would take thousands of years and tens of billions of dollars to complete. the ocean cleanup project's passive systems are estimated to remove half the Great Pacific Garbage patch in just five years and at a fraction of the cost.

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1.8 trillion pieces of plastic float at the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Here, the ocean cleanup deployed the world's first technological solution to this growing problem. the principle behind it is simple: create a coastline where there are none... concentrate the plastic... and take it out. the system consists of a 600-meter-long floater and a 3-meter-deep skirt attached to it. the floater provides buoyancy to the system and prevents plastic from flowing over it, while the skirt creates a downward flow, so marine life can safely pass beneath it. As the impenetrable skirt creates a downward flow, marine life can safely pass beneath it 

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here is how the system catches plastic: the system takes advantage of three natural oceanic forces: wind, waves, and currents. both the plastic and system are being carried by the current. howver, wind and waves propel the system only, as the floater partly sticks above the surface while plastic is primarily beneath it. the system thus moves faster than plastic, allowing the plastic to be captured.

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the skirt extends deeper in the middle of the system than on the outer edges. As the current applies pressure on the skirt, the system naturally adopts a U-shape which enables it to concentrate plastic in its center, like a funnel. the drag generated by the skirt also as a stabilising force allowing the system to reorientate when the wind changes direction. and because the system- like plastic - is free-floating, it automatically drifts to areas with the highest plastic concentration 

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fitted with solar powered lights, anti collision systems, cameras, sensors and satellites antennas, the system actively communicates its position at all times and continually gathers performance data. periodically, a support vessel comes by to takeout the concentrated plastic like a garbage truck of the ocean. tHe plastic is then transported to land, recycled, and made into durable products