Therefore, just placing a boom of 100 k in the ocean
cannot solve the problem; it is essential to also prevent
new plastic particles from entering the oceans. The blue
dashed line in Figure 2.45 represents this case. Here, it
can be seen that the total amount of plastic is reduced by
almost 50% in 10 years.
In the rest of the study it is assumed that no more new
plastic particles will enter the oceans by the time the
boom is deployed. As this probably is not a very realistic
situation, the transport and processing costs in Chapter
4 and 9 will become higher in reality, but the cost per kilogram
of extracted plastic in Chapter 10 will be very conservative
as a consequence.