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Cleaning up plastics in the ocean could be a self-powering process. New research suggests that it鈥檚 thermodynamically feasible to convert ocean plastic to diesel right aboard a ship.

Ocean plastic is a huge ecological problem, with an estimated 150 million m.t. of plastic already in the seas and an additional 8 million m.t. entering the oceans each year, according to the Ocean Conservancy. As this plastic degrades, it breaks into microscopic flakes that are ingested by sea creatures at the bottom of the food chain. Larger pieces entangle and kill sea birds, fish, and marine mammals.

Thanks to ocean currents, plastics gather in what are known as gyres, the most famous of which is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. A nonprofit called The Ocean Cleanup has been testing a series of floating nets called booms in the patch. Plastic passively collects in the booms, ships retrieve the booms, and the plastic is taken back to port to be disposed of properly.

Instead of landfilling the plastic, though, it might be possible to use it. Researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Harvard Univ. studied whether the plastic collected from the ocean might be usable as an energy source. They found that using a process called hydrothermal liquefaction, it鈥檚 possible to break down plastics on board the ship into plastic-derived diesel that could be...