What's Rustling Jimmy's Jimmies?

Jenny vs. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Have you ever wondered what happens to the plastic waste you throw away? When disposed of properly, most of it ends up in landfills. But often, they can wind up in our waterways before eventually traveling to our oceans. There, they amass into large garbage patches, the largest of which is currently floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Located between Hawaii and California, The Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometers—roughly twice the size of Texas! It weighs 87,000 tons and contains more than 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, which is 16 times larger than previously estimated, according to PBS.

The garbage patch is so big that many scientists doubt whether or not it can even be removed. Cleaning up even only one percent of the area would take 67 ships one year, according to estimates by The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program. Charles Moore, the man who first discovered the patch in 1997, asserted that any country that attempted to clean up the patch would bankrupt itself, and that cleaning it up could take an estimated 79,000 years.

But there might be hope yet in defeating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and its name is Jenny. That’s the name of the newest U-shaped net system created by The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organization that seeks to remove 90 percent of ocean plastic debris by 2040.

Smithsonian Magazine describes Jenny as thus: “Guided by two boats, the half-mile-long installation works by catching large and small debris from the seawater in a funnel-shaped net. Once Jenny is full of trash, workers empty the plastic onto the boat before taking it ashore to recycle.”

Earlier this August, Jenny was sent on a test run where it successfully removed nearly 20,000 pounds—or about 10 tons—of plastic waste from the garbage patch. Its creator, Boyan Slat, estimates that ten Jennys could clean up half of The Great Pacific Garbage Patch in five years, which means that the entire patch could potentially be removed within ten years, as reported by Smithsonian Magazine.

Still, many scientists remain skeptical. Even if Slat and his organization succeeded in clearing away the larger debris, many microscopic plastic particles could remain lingering in the ocean. These “microplastics” prove especially dangerous, as they can be ingested by fish and other sea animals—and inevitably by the people who eat them.

Even then, if Jenny proves anything, it’s that even the smallest effort can make a big impact. In the grand scope, removing only ten tons of plastic waste from an 87,000-ton garbage patch might be a small feat, but it proves that a seemingly insurmountable task can be overcome given enough brainpower and elbow grease.

I remember many years ago in grade school learning about the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. Back then, many scientists speculated that the hole could take a lifetime to fix, if it could even be fixed at all; and yet, as of last year, the hole has shrunken to its smallest size yet. It took many years and a CFC ban, but the ozone has nearly healed itself.

Today, we face many large ecological catastrophes, from coronavirus to global warming, that seem too big, if not impossible, to fix; and yet if we can patch the ozone layer and start cleaning the Pacific Ocean, then nothing is too big to overcome. As the old proverb goes, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step.

The views and opinions expressed in columns are not necessarily the views and opinions of Today & Tonight Magazine or Today & Tonight, Inc.