Dutch diver fishes for profitable plastic

The Dutch diver who turned his concern about polluted waterways into a successful crowd-funding campaign has announced an ocean self-cleaning system that could capture floating plastics for re-use.

The system, which will be deployed in the sea separating Japan and Korea, works off of the world's gyres – tidal flows that direct the oceans' rubbish to five central points.

Charles Moore, the researcher who discovered the Pacific's 'garbage dump', says up to 7.25 million tonnes of plastic is floating in the gyres, equivalent to 1000 Eiffel Towers, which would take at least 79,000 years to clean up at the current rate.

The 20-year-old diver, Boyan Slat, spent years exploring the underwater ecosystems of the Azores islands off the coast of Portugal, and believes the trial between the Japanese island of Tsushima and South Korea is one step towards cleaning the ocean in a fraction of that time.

A platform in the shape of a manta ray is being built, and will have two huge floating arms spanning two kilometres from its central point. It will allow sea life to pass under it while the buoyant plastic rubbish is captured within it.

Slat believes that if the plastics collected by the gyres were sold, there would be profit of over $US500 million – more than it would cost to execute.

The first trial will be rolled out in 2016, with Slat heading up a team of more than 100 researchers.

He has also worked on the Ocean Cleanup program, and received a Champions of the Earth award from the United Nations.