The Ocean Cleanup Project has unveiled a giant "Pac-Man" system designed to gobble up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Researchers have been working hard to design a system that could sweep up the trash that makes up the massive floating island of plastic located halfway between Hawaii and California, but were forced to go back to the drawing board when tests showed that waves were moving the original contraption too much, The Daily Mail noted.
Now the final design for the system has been revealed and is being touted as "simpler, cheaper, more efficient" on social media.
The new system features a 600-meter-long floater that sits at the surface of the water with a tapered 3-meter-deep skirt attached below, according to The Ocean Cleanup website.
The floater will keep the system afloat and prevent plastic from flowing over it while the skirt below will stop debris from escaping underneath.
CEO Boyan Slat explained that the system would power around the Great Pacific Garbage Patch gathering plastic like a "giant wind-and-wave-powered Pac-Man," The Daily Mail noted.
A vessel will then haul the plastic waste away to be recycled on land.
A recent study suggested that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a vast dump of plastic waste swirling in the Pacific Ocean, is now bigger than France, Germany and Spain combined and is growing rapidly.
Researchers found about 80,000 tons of buoyant plastic in the dump, with around 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic posing a threat to marine life.
The Ocean Cleanup said that a full-scale cleanup system roll-out of 60 systems could clean 50 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in just five years.
By 2040, the Ocean Cleanup Project hopes to remove 90 percent of ocean plastic.
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