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Norwegian Billionaire Funding World's Largest Superyacht—to Vacuum Plastic Garbage Out of the Ocean
This is great - stories like this (i.e. the wealthy leveraging their resources to uplift society / others around them) don't get enough coverage.
For the cost of this vessel, he could hire 100 Purse Seine netters, to go out and catch all that plastic in either the Atlantic or Pacific Gyres. No research necessary.
A single Purse Seine netter can cover appx. 20,000 square feet of ocean surface, maximum, per cast. The North Pacific garbage patch alone (yes, there are multiple) covers an area of approximately 7,500,000,000,000 square feet, by even the absolutely most conservative estimates. Their storage by volume is relatively limited as well, due to the small size of the craft. That means, by most optimistic calculations, 375,000,000 casts by the most capable craft to cover the lowest estimate of just one of the many floating garbage patches. Additionally, a Purse Seine net is designed to go to a pretty deep depth, where grabbing all the trash would only require shallow surface netting.
Again, not saying I have any faith in this craft accomplishing that hefty task, but I wanted to point out the scale of such an operation.
My answer was, You are right, BS. My point, there are cheaper options than building this boat. Do something. Anything! How about those old Whaling factory ship designs where they hauled the carcass up a ramp.