The Ocean Cleanup focuses on the floating fraction of plastics. Since most are located between the surface and a depth of two meters, the cleanup system will be designed to clean up only the plastic in this upper layer of the water column. System 03 has a screen that extends 4 meters deep.
For more information about the distribution of plastic in the water column, read our update about vertical distribution here (2016) and our research on the fallout of microplastic here (2020).