OFFSHORE supply ship, Maersk Launcher, made available by AP Moller-Maersk and DeepGreen, the ship's charter holder, are towing a device created to remove waste plastic at sea from San Francisco Bay to a location 240 nautical miles offshore for a two-week trial. Once the testing is completed, the unmanned cleanup system that is a U-shaped floating barrier, 2,000 feet long with a 10-foot skirt will be towed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, 1,200 nautical miles offshore, to start the cleanup. The System 001 cleanup device created by Dutch non-profit organisation The Ocean Cleanup is designed to be propelled by wind and waves, allowing it to passively catch and concentrate plastic debris in front of it. Due to its shape, the debris will be funnelled to the centre of the system and then periodically removed by a ship and taken to shore to be recycled, reported American Shipper. It is equipped with lights, anti-collision systems, cameras, sensors and satellite antennas to prevent it from becoming a hazard to navigation and communicate when it needs to be emptied. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the world's largest accumulation zone of ocean plastics, is situated halfway between Hawaii and California. The patch contains 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic and covers an area twice the size of Texas. If successful and funding is available, The Ocean Cleanup aims to build a fleet of 60 systems focused on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch over the next two years. The Ocean Cleanup predicts that the full fleet can remove half of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within five years.