Excerpt:

Already grappling with how to retain plastic it has collected at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a cleanup rig had another setback over the weekend and will be returning to port in Alameda sooner than expected.

During an inspection Saturday, crew members found that an end section of the cleanup’s U-shaped boom had detached, Ocean Cleanup founder Boyan Slat said on the nonprofit’s site.

There was no danger to the crew, the environment or marine traffic, and there’s no risk that the rig would roll over, said Slat, a Dutch inventor who founded the cleanup project in 2013.