Cleaning plastic from the ocean has often seemed unattainable. But now Dutch inventor Boyan Slat, founder of the Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit that aims to remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040, has found a strategy that works. Its latest device, nicknamed Jenny, is an artificial floating coastline towed slowly by two vessels so the ocean current funnels the plastic into a woven funnel-shaped net. Launched in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in August, Jenny caught 9,000 kilograms -- nearly 20,000 pounds -- of trash. Slat says 10 Jennys could clean up 50% of the Patch in five years.
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