Excerpt:

An innovative system aimed at sweeping up the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” — a massive vortex of plastic drifting between California and Hawaii — will be launched from Alameda later this year.

The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit headquartered in the Netherlands, will use a floater attached to a screen under the water, which if all goes according to plan will concentrate the debris and allow it to be collected.

An anchor will be suspended below the equipment at about 2,000 feet, making the system move with the Pacific Ocean’s current slower than the debris and so easier to gather up.