He made ocean plastic pollution the subject of a high school project examining why it was considered impossible to clean up.

Whereas other change-agents rely on reshuffling the existing building blocks of society, technological innovation creates entirely new ones, expanding our problem-solving toolbox.

Some declared the concept unfeasible in a technical critique[14][15][16] of the feasibility study on the Deep Sea News website, which was cited by other publications, including Popular Science[17] and The Guardian.

[18] Since the Ocean Cleanup started, the organization has raised tens of millions of dollars in donations from entrepreneurs in Europe and in Silicon Valley, including Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.

System 001 was unable to effectively retain plastic and suffered structural stress damage that caused an 18-meter section to break off at one point.