The Ocean Cleanup spent about five years working on a solution to clean plastic from oceans, finally unveiling its 2,000-foot-long plastic cleaning array in September.
Founder Boyan Slat wants to clean plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a vortex of trash in the North Pacific Ocean that is more than three times the size of Spain. The Ocean Cleanup says it can remove half of the patch's plastic in five years if it deploys 60 of its plastic-collecting arrays.
Some experts have voiced concern about The Ocean Cleanup, saying it will be ineffective and cause marine life to get trapped in the debris. Slat's team later defended the safety and design of the project.
Birnbaum said SodaStream's device will not harm marine life, noting that the two devices were made to collect trash from different water depths.