Floating boom is designed to trap 1.8tn items of plastic without harming marine life – but broke apart last time, Sat 22 Jun 2019 22.31 EDT And we’re on our way! A floating device designed to catch plastic waste has been redeployed in a second attempt to clean up a huge island of garbage swirling in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is one of five gyres, or vortexes, where currents have concentrated debris that has ended up in the ocean. Boyan Slat, creator of the Ocean Cleanup project, announced on Twitter that a 600 metre (2,000ft) long floating boom that broke apart late last year was sent back to the Great Pacific garbage patch this week after four months of repair. The plastic barrier with a tapered three metre deep (10ft deep) screen is intended to act like a coastline, trapping some of the 1.8tn pieces of plastic that scientists estimate are swirling in the patch while allowing marine life to safely swim beneath it. https://t.co/VCMDHqpB7S. A ship towed the U-shaped barrier from San Francisco to the patch in September to trap the plastic. Ben Lecomte spent 80 days swimming through the world's largest collection of marine litter. But during the four months at sea, the boom broke apart under constant waves and wind and the boom was not retaining the plastic it caught. Great Pacific garbage patch: giant plastic trap put to sea again This article is more than 1 year old. Slat has said he hopes one day to deploy 60 of the devices to skim plastic debris off the surface of the ocean. “Hopefully nature doesn’t have too many surprises in store for us this time,” Slat tweeted. All rights reserved. During its first run, the organisation said marine biologists on board the support vessel did not observe any environmental impact. It is estimated to cover a … Last modified on Fri 12 Jul 2019 09.28 EDT. Sat 22 Jun 2019 22.31 EDT Last modified on Fri 12 Jul 2019 09.28 EDT. Available for everyone, funded by readers. Fitted with solar-powered lights, cameras, sensors and satellite antennas, the device intends to communicate its position at all times, allowing a support vessel to fish out the collected plastic every few months and transport it to dry land. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. “Either way, we’re set to learn a lot from this campaign.”.