The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, about twice the size of the state of Texas (or three times the size of France), is located northeast of Hawaii and extends just west of California.

The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit organization, has been researching the Pacific Ocean garbage patch for many years. Throughout the year they have found that the amount of plastic is much greater than originally estimated. In late 2021, they started the largest clean-up in history. This time, System 002, or Jenny (yes, it was named after Forrest Gump’s boat), is composed of two vessels. Each vessel travels parallel, about 1 mile apart, with a large casting net attached to them, dragging behind. The net is about 10 feet (3 meters) deep, has a flotation on top, and is open at the bottom to allow fish to escape.

As the vessels move very slowly at about 2 miles per hour, the net captures plastic. As the vessels navigate forward all the plastic pieces move toward the center of the net, called the retention zone, where plastic is captured and secured. After about a week of cleaning, the central retention zone is brought to a vessel and all the plastic is dumped.

Scientists analyze the plastic pieces and track where they came from. In October 2021, the Ocean Cleanup concluded Jenny’s first large-scale cleanup, considered a test for this new system, a 12-week testing campaign collected about 8.2 tons of plastic. There will need to be more trips or larger scaled projects to keep up with the estimated 79,000 tons of plastic swirling just in the giant Pacific Ocean Garbage patch.

The nonprofit is already working on a much more scaled-up plastic capturing system, called System 003. They understand a much larger system will be required to really clean up this part of the Pacific Ocean. According to estimates, they would need around 10 full-size systems to clean up the Pacific Garbage patch. If these types of systems could be deployed into all the other trash gyres in the world, the company estimates that they could remove 90% of the plastic floating in our oceans by 2040.

There are other 4 ocean patches in the world-- one located over the southern Pacific Ocean, west of the South American coastline. Another patch is east of South America over the Southern Atlantic Ocean, and another one is located over the tropical Atlantic Ocean, between Cabo Verde Island and the Caribbean. The last one is south of India over the Indian Ocean, between Africa and Australia. That is a lot of plastic!