Good news! The Ocean Cleanup’s device meant to clean up the ocean actually works! The first of the collected garbage has been successfully hauled back to shore after its successful test run. The company’s next steps are fortifying the device to handle the real deal garbage patch and figure out what to do with all that trash, both of which are harder than they seem.

The idea now is to turn the garbage into a product. It is plastic and there are many different ventures that are turning specifically ocean plastic into products. The issue with this trash, however, is that it’s been sitting out in the water for a very, very long time. Decades in some cases making it very corroded and therefore hard to re-purpose.

The desire is for the project to be self sustaining which is a nice goal but may it’s not possible. And if it’s not, but it works and they are able to successfully build a device that can clean the garbage patch, then perhaps it should just be supported. Cleaning up the environment may not be profitable but we kind of have to live here.