The large plastic island in the Pacific is a huge accumulation of floating rubbish, with a size that, depending on estimates, ranges from an area like Spain to one like the USA.
It can include up to 100 million tons of debris, began forming in the 80s and is one of the most extensive works of human stupidity. Think about it, an island of waste.
The Chinese designer Hongling Li he wants to clean up this plastic island in the Pacific by building a skyscraper in the middle.
His project, with the pragmatic name of “Filtration”, consists of a mega structure that incorporates various waste recovery and water treatment tools. This structure would be installed on a former oil platform located near this floating continent of plastic.
Filtration would use the same seawater to pump waste to the top of its tower, hold it for recycling, and pour the cleaned water back into the ocean.
Breaking idea
The concepts environmental the basis of Filtration seems to have come out of a dystopian film, but they earned Honglin a special mention in the annual ideas competition of the architecture magazine eVolo's 2019.
The public's curiosity is justified by two things. The ambition of the project, which seems truly titanic, and the difficulty of tackling the problem of the large plastic island in the Pacific, a problem which currently seems unsolvable.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
So what is the best way to fix this huge mass of waste? According to Holly Bamford, director of the US waste and atmosphere management program, we could first of all stop its growth.
“We need to turn off the tap at its source,” says the bamford. “We can achieve this by educating people to manage objects they don't use well, especially plastic ones. As a society, we must put first and foremost the fact that what we buy must always be reused."
