Cleanup Prize

X Prize Founder Peter Diamandis Targets Breakthroughs With More Incentive Prizes - Xconomy San Diego - This article broadly covers the X PRIZE Foundation, but with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, the potential Ocean X PRIZE is given special treatment. The Ocean Exploration and Ocean Mapping prizes I've mentioned before are featured, but there's one ocean prize under consideration that I hadn't heard about before, at least at this level of detail:

—Ocean conservation. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a region of the Pacific Ocean where plastic trash accumulates into vast masses of unsinkable drifting litter. The X Prize Foundation is considering a prize that would spur the development of innovative ways to “heal” such garbage patches.