Excerpt:

Five large patches of garbage, called gyres, swirl around the earth’s oceans. The largest clogs aquatic life in the Pacific Ocean. The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch nonprofit, founded by Boyan Slat when he was just 18 years old, has designed a system to help clean up that mass of refuse and debris.

The company plans to sweep concentrated plastic from the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” and sell the debris to recyclers. Ocean Cleanup would use the money it receives to fund more gyre clean-ups. And the company is going to prepare to do all this at Alameda Point.