Turning an island into diesel

The Maldives premier made it to the headlines when he said he was planning to relocate his country. He was referring to the sea level rise and the threat to his nation.

There is one another island which defies sea levels. And volunteers are pitching in efforts to torpedo the island out of existence. So to say.

Sailing adrift on the Pacific is a ship no one wants to claim ownership of, but all the same it belongs to all of us. This is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, twice the size of Texas and created from six million tonnes of discarded plastic.

Discovered in 1997 it is made of bottle caps, plastic bags and plastic chips. Broken down by sun and waves they become tiny plastic chips with huge potential attracting and poisoning marine life.

An upcoming ocean garbage expedition to the patch, dubbed Project Kaisei will explore the feasibility of collecting and recycling the garbage patch into diesel fuel. With a crew of 30, the expedition, supported by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Brita, the water company, will use unmanned aircraft and robotic surface explorers to map the extent and depth of the plastic continent while collecting 40 tonnes of the refuse for trial recycling.

If the plan sounds too ambitious, a modest derelict fishing net recycling program in Hawaii proves that it is possible.

The Honolulu Derelict Net Recycling Program, in which abandoned fishing nets are brought into port, chopped into pieces, crushed, sorted, and recycled as fuel at HPower, a waste-to-electricity plant. The plant provides electricity to 40,000 homes, and it’s estimated that the recycled nets account for about 280 of them. So far about 660 tons of nets have been sent to HPower since 2006.

Compared to the 4 million tons of debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch this is nothing. But Project Kaisei is relying on sponsorships and donations to get in gear. Want to help?