Cleanup Project Finds Home at Point

Five large patches of garbage, called gyres, swirl around the earth’s oceans. The largest clogs aquatic life in the Pacific Ocean. The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch nonprofit, founded by Boyan Slat when he was just 18 years old, has designed a system to help clean up that mass of refuse and debris. 

The company plans to sweep concentrated plastic from the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” and sell the debris to recyclers. Ocean Cleanup would use the money it receives to fund more gyre clean-ups. And the company is going to prepare to do all this at Alameda Point. 

The company hopes to begin assembling its 2,000-foot long system in March. It will then lower the system into Seaplane Lagoon and tow it out the Golden Gate to begin its mission of collecting the debris. 

Slat estimates that his company can play a large role in ridding the Pacific of its garbage patch. “It will be gone within five years, at minimal costs,” he said. He hopes to start the project this June or July with the system he builds at Alameda Point and “progressively make use of additional systems until (his company) achieves full-scale deployment by 2020.”