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doesn’t fill me with excitement.

I’m skeptical too, but I choose to retain some optimism in a world with so much terrible stuff. This project seems to have more than zero potential, without introducing obvious great harm.

We all look forward to the success of your superior alternative.

it’s not clear in the article what they’re doing with the waste they recover. Simply moving it around doesn’t eliminate the garbage. And the project does not appear to include a budget for recycling or otherwise repurposing what they recover.

I found this with three clicks on project’s web site:

“Once our containers are full of plastic onboard, we bring them back to shore for recycling. For each system batch, we are making durable and sustainable products. Supporters getting the products will help fund the continued ocean cleanup. Catch, rinse, recycle and repeat - until the oceans are clean. The sunglasses are a proof of concept for this.”

It might not seem like much yet, but it’s better than nothing, and we have to start somewhere.