Floating pipe named Wilson will tackle the 'Great Pacific Garbage patch': 2,000 foot-long net will be used to clear giant pile of rubbish twice the size of Texas drifting in the Ocean

2,000 foot long floating pipe takes on the 'Great Pacific Garbage patch' between San Francisco and Hawaii
The U shaped pipe features a 3-metre deep net underneath it to trap floating plastic under the water's surface
A boat will collect the debris every few months which will then be recycled and turned into new products

Published: 05:19 EDT, 16 October 2018 | Updated: 06:00 EDT, 16 October 2018

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A plastic fighting floating pipe nicknamed Wilson has begun a mission to rid the Pacific Ocean of plastic.

The 2,000 foot-long (610m) floating pipe is set to take on the 'Great Pacific Garbage patch', a giant floating pile of rubbish located between San Francisco and Hawaii.

It's the largest of five ocean trash piles on earth and is twice the size of Texas, but it could soon be eliminated by the U-shaped pipe.

It has been launched by the Ocean Cleanup Foundation, features a 10 foot (3m) deep net underneath it, which has been designed to trap floating plastic under the water's surface.

A boat will return to the spot every couple of months to remove the debris collected, acting like a garbage truck for the ocean.

It will then return it to shore, where it can be recycled correctly and eventually turned into new products.

At present the oceans of the world harbour around 150 million tonnes of plastic, with that number only set to grow in the next decade.

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Cleaning up the ocean: the U-shaped device was launched in San Francisco and Ocean Cleanup's founder said that plastic could still be there in 100 years

Ocean Cleanup's founder, Boyan Slat said that this type of rubbish disposal could have real impacts for climate change as well as the fishing industries and tourism.

'That plastic is still going to be there in one year. It's still going to be there in ten years.

'It's probably still going to be there in 100 years, so really only if we go out there and clean it up this amount of plastic is going to go down.'

This new type of rubbish disposal could have real impacts for climate change as well as the fishing industries and tourism which are prominent in both San Francisco and Hawaii

Ocean Cleanup's founder, 24-year old Boyan Slat (pictured) is confident that the technology can help save the current state that oceans are in by helping to remove plastics

The group hopes the pipe will collect 50 tons of trash by April 2019 and clean 90% of the world's ocean plastic by the year 2040

WHAT DOES THE DEEP-SEA DEBRIS DATABASE REVEAL ABOUT OCEAN PLASTIC POLLUTION?

Plastic pollution is a scourge that is ravaging the surface of our planet. Now, the polluting polymer is sinking down to the bottom of the ocean.

The deepest part of the ocean is found in the Mariana Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean, to the east of the Mariana Islands. It stretches down nearly 36,100 feet (11,000 metres) below the surface.

One plastic bag was found 35,754 feet (10,898 metres) below the surface in this region, the deepest known piece of human-made pollution in the world. This single-use piece of plastic was found deeper than 33 Eiffel towers, laid tip to base, would reach.

Whilst the plastic pollution is rapidly sinking, it is also spreading further into the middle of the oceans. A piece of plastic was found over 620 miles (1,000 km) from the nearest coast - that's further than the length of France.

The Global Oceanographic Data Center (Godac) of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (Jamstec) launched for public use in March 2017.

In this database, there is the data from 5,010 different dives. From all of these different dives, 3,425 man-made debris items were counted.

More than 33 per cent of the debris was macro-plastic followed by metal (26 per cent), rubber (1.8 per cent), ﬁshing gear (1.7 per cent), glass (1.4 per cent), cloth/paper/lumber (1.3 per cent), and 'other' anthropogenic items (35 per cent).

It was also discovered that of all the waste found, 89 per cent of it was designed for single-use purposes. This is defined as plastic bags, bottles and packages. The deeper the study looked, the greater the amount of plastic they found.

Of all man-made items found deeper than 20,000 feet (6,000 metres), the ratios increased to 52 per cent for macro-plastic and 92 per cent for single-use plastic.

The direct damage this caused to the ecosystem and environment is clear to see as deep-sea organisms were observed in the 17 per cent of plastic debris images taken by the study.

The 24-year old's company has been researching and testing the pipe for the past five years and in 2013 the project raised over $2million (£1.52million) through crowd funding and has since managed to raise over $30million (£22.75million).

The group hopes the pipe will collect 50 tonnes of trash by April 2019 and clean 90 per cent of the world's ocean plastic by the year 2040.

The device has satellite pods that communicate with the company's headquarters in the Netherlands and other boats to share its location. It's controlled remotely and has two cameras located in the centre.

Once successful, and if the funding is available, The Ocean Cleanup aims to scale up to a fleet of approximately 60 systems focused on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch over the next two years

Earlier this year President Donald Trump signed the Save Our Seas Act, which aims to help clean ocean waste by extending its own ocean cleanup initiative, the Marine Debris Program, for five more years

Once successful, and if the funding is available, The Ocean Cleanup aims to scale up to a fleet of approximately 60 systems focused on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch over the next two years.

The Ocean Cleanup projects that the full fleet can remove half of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within five years' time.

Despite the size of the pipe, which was first sent out on September 8, some experts have questioned how much of an effect technology like this can actually have on something as vast as the ocean.

Boyan Slat addresses the press and members of the public as he prepares to launch the U-shaped pipe which is set to help cut the amount of plastic

Some experts have criticised the project and have said that something similar and more effective could be done to help but at a fraction of the costs accumulated by the team

The Ocean Cleanup now employs approximately 80 engineers and researchers. The foundation is headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands

The California Coastal Commission's marine debris programme manager, Eben Schwartz said one concern regarding the device is that the percentage of plastic that floats and can be detected by the device could be too small to make an impact.

'It's much more effective from a cost and prevention effort to stop trash from entering in the first place,' Schwartz said.

Schwartz told CNN that his water and beach cleanup volunteer group collected between 7 and 10 times the amount of trash Ocean Cleanup wants to capture by spring 2019.

Once fully operational, the full fleet of passive collection systems is expected to remove 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 5 years’ time

It is expected that the first shipment of debris collected by this system will be returned to land for recycling within 6 months after deployment

The Ocean Cleanup is working to design processes to convert recovered ocean plastic into valuable raw materials and durable products

'We did it in three hours and for a fraction of the cost of The Ocean Cleanup's project.'

Although Schwartz said that cleaning up the oceans is important, he believes the attention around the project could curb other efforts to reduce waste.

'If this makes people feel like they don't need to worry about recycling because this thing is out there, that's a serious negative consequence,' he said.

Even though there are governemtn initiatives and criticism from other groups Slat still champions the pipe and said he thinks it will make a big difference.

'Back in the day people said, "Well, there's no way to clean this up. The best thing we could do is not make it worse".

'But to me that's a very uninspiring message. Everyone wants the future to be better than the present, and that's what we hope to achieve.'

WHAT ARE THE LATEST PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE IMPACT OF OCEAN WASTE?

The amount of plastic in the oceans is expected to triple in just ten years, a report issued by the UK government in March 2018 warned.

This key environmental problem risks being ‘out of sight, out of mind’ with more known about the surface of Mars and the Moon than the deep sea bed, it added.

The toll of plastic pollution in the sea could be 150million tonnes by 2025 – treble the 50million tonnes estimated in 2015.

Our oceans store carbon dioxide and heat while producing oxygen and food, the Foresight Future of the Sea Report stressed.

On the growing blight of plastic pollution, the document warned this will leave a physical presence, accumulating on coasts or in particular areas of ocean.

The report also warned plastic litter on coasts can increase the risk of dangerous bacteria in the water, such as E.coli.

It said efforts to reduce plastic pollution should focus on stopping it entering the sea, developing new biodegradable materials and public awareness campaigns.