Massive trash collector aims to corral Pacific Ocean's plastic waste

SAN FRANCISCO - Engineers set to sea on Saturday to deploy a trash collection device to corral plastic litter floating between California and Hawaii in an attempt to clean up the world's largest garbage patch in the heart of the Pacific Ocean.

The 600-meter-long floating boom was being towed from San Francisco to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - an island of trash twice the size of Texas.

The system was created by The Ocean Cleanup, an organization founded by Boyan Slat, a 24-year-old from the Netherlands who first became passionate about cleaning the oceans when he went scuba diving at age 16 in the Mediterranean Sea and saw more plastic bags than fish.