Dive Brief:

• A Dutch teen, Boyan Slat, created a proposal to remove the floating plastic garbage found in the North Pacific's “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” The machine could prove to be a viable concept, according to scientists that reviewed the project.
• The “Ocean Cleanup Array” uses solar panels and “arms” to direct plastics into a tube without harming ocean life.
• The machine costs an estimated $43 million every year, for a decade. Funding could be generated by selling the plastic recovered. 

Dive Insight:

Although a working model hasn’t been fabricated, 15 universities, institutions and engineering organizations are standing behind the project.

From a concept by Plastic Bank to convert recovered plastics washed ashore into new products to bottle deposit laws, different groups are considering many solutions to solve the mounting issue of trash in the oceans.