The Ocean Cleanup's first buoyant trash-collecting device in front of the San Francisco skyline in September 2018. The device has already broken and is being towed to Hawaii. Photo / AP
A trash collection device deployed to corral plastic litter floating in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii will be hauled back to dry land for repairs.
Boyan Slat, who launched the Pacific Ocean cleanup project, told NBC News last week that the 600-metre long floating boom will be towed 1300 kilometres to Hawaii.
If it can't be repaired there, it will be loaded on a barge and returned to its home port of Alameda, California.
The boom broke apart under constant wind and waves.
Slat says he's disappointed, but not discouraged.
The 24-year-old Dutch inventor says because the device new technology, he always anticipated it would need frequent updating.
Previously he said the boom was moving slower than the plastic, allowing the trash to float away.
- AP
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