Prompt #1: The Pacific Garbage Patch is an area in the ocean covered by garbage that’s as wide as 7.7 million square miles in the Pacific Ocean. What are ways you would try to clean up the mess?
Brandon Jimenez, Age 11
A way I could clean the mess is by taking a submarine with two large vacuums. They would be really long and waterproof. It would weigh 90 pounds and it would hold a million pieces of garbage on the back. The garbage will go to the dumpster which would be really big and would hold more than a trillion pieces of trash. That’s more than a million bags full of trash. In the dumpster there would be a machine you could control the vacuums with a remote.
Yahir Agulano, Age 12
The ocean is huge, so is the whole garbage patch. Whole seas to creeks, garbage is ruining our nature, our coral reefs, our air, and our beautiful beaches. We need to think fast, and we did a bit from huge nets to things vacuuming water for garbage. Here’s what I’ve come up with as one of those thinkers with an imagination. Using the immense amount of garbage, I would recycle them and create artificial islands, 200-800 miles apart from each other. Inside them would be a small base with a net attached to all the islands to catch more garbage. A port would be in them to get garbage and transport them inland for sale to huge industries that are focused on creating recycled products. Once the mission of destroying the evil garbage patch is complete, we could sell these artificial islands to scientist based organizations like the MMC, different governments could create naval bases, telecommunications companies and wealthy people could put their names next to the effort and nature, or should I say in the middle of it. It could even be used as places for future resorts. Profitable, but imaginative. I wish this could work.
Thomas McVey, Age 15
The solution to this problem would really depend on the type of garbage. The most obvious solution, using nets, would not work due to the destruction it would have to the fish population and habitat. As the waste is mostly plastic, the simplest way to do it is to take a large ship and have people grab the plastic out of the water. It would require a lot of volunteers or government paid workers, but to clean 7.7 million square miles it is most likely worth it. If the 88,000 tons of garbage is too much to store, we could jettison loads of plastic to the moon, because burning it would create too much CO₂ emission. According to Space.com, their newest ship can carry 50.5 tons per flight which would take about 1500 flights from here to the moon. This would cost a total of about 176,000,000,000 dollars according to Elon Musk’s mile per pound estimates. The fuel for the flights would be quite expensive as well, but 88,000 tons of plastic polluting the planet has to be moved.
Hardwin Canul-Camara, Age 13
Something that could help people clean the ocean is by using nets to fish out the trash or a machine that takes in the trash while letting the water go. It would have huge storage and would float on top of the water. Even if there is 7.7 million square miles, it could still help a little bit.
Maya Dominguez, Age 9
“Trash, Don’t Go into the Ocean!”
Once upon a time, I walked near a street and saw trash near the ocean on the beach. I went and picked up the trash and I bought a pizza and made a sign that said “Pick Up the Trash for Pizza.” Many people picked up trash for pizza and they brought three or four pieces of trash which made the beach all clean. After I went to the city and saw lots more trash than on the beach, so I said on another sign “Free Starbucks” and many more people picked up more trash. As people were picking up trash, I asked one of them, “Have you ever tried saving a plant?”
The person said, “I have, but for me it doesn’t work.”
“Oh,” I said.
Alondra Margarito Reyes, Age 9
One way that I could help clean the Pacific Ocean is by making a community. This is a good idea because this work needs many people not just one. I think that it is a good idea because if we don’t help, the animals that live there will die. Another reason is the garbage in the ocean is affecting animals because animals think the garbage is food.
Daniel Margarita Reyes, Age 9
I would tell people not to throw garbage away and clean. Then I would start cleaning and get some people to help me. After I would call the garbage people and I would throw away the trash. Then I would clean up using a net to more trash faster.
Liliana Romero, Age 8
I think that a way to clean the ocean from pollution is by creating teams to collect the trash. I think this because we can’t do this by ourselves because there is too much trash in the ocean for one person all by his/herself. I think this will help because you know what they say, Teamwork makes the Dreamwork!
Karen Santiago, Age 11
One idea I have to fix the garbage is pay people money to go pick up the garbage. Another idea is to make a robot or a machine to pick out all the garbage and then sort it out into different piles of garbage, recycling, and compost. Lastly, I would take out the fish and put them in another area.
D’Angelo Ruiz, Age 11
If I had a choice to get rid of the huge trash cans, I would just throw myself into the Sun. But for real, I would just send the trash to the Sun and I’ll come back to my flat earth. It’s the only way because if we burn it, global warming will get worse. If we blow it up, it will cause a lot of damage. And if we nuke it, we are all going to die. Have a nice life while you can.
Angel Zea, Age 9
I would take a helicopter with those really big bags and I would swoop down to the trash, come back up, and then go to the nearest space station and then put it in a rocket ship. Then I would send it to Mars and redo everything until there’s no more trash. Then when Mars is full of trash I would go to Venus.
Christian Zea, Age 13
Some ways that I would try to clean the ocean would be by gathering a bunch of people together and getting boats and little submarines to collect trash from the deep bottom of the ocean. That one would be one of the ways that I would try. My second option would be getting really big nets/claws and collecting trash like that until we get most of the ocean clean. My third way would be by putting a big filter that would collect all the trash in the ocean and send it to a factory that destroys or burns trash.
