Los Angeles is trying to get ahead of a familiar problem before the 2028 Summer Olympics, trash washing down its rivers and onto its beaches.

Authorities in two Los Angeles districts have been working out how to remove thousands of pounds of rubbish from the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers. They turned to Boyan Slat, the founder of The Ocean Cleanup, the nonprofit known for tackling the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and for a river-cleaning device called the Interceptor.

The Interceptor has already been deployed in Ballona Creek near Marina Del Rey, where it collects about 28,000 pounds, or about 13,000 kilograms, of trash each year from Westside communities including Venice, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.

Seal Beach City Councilmember Joe Kalmick and California Assemblymember Diane Dixon contacted The Ocean Cleanup to look at the possibility of installing an Interceptor in the San Gabriel River. The pair formed the San Gabriel River Working Group and began appointing a team to draft a feasibility study aimed at repeating Ballona Creek’s results.

The Interceptor is a white barge that sits in the river until rain sends rubbish from across surrounding areas toward the ocean and beaches. A diver then connects a boom and net to the concrete side of the canalised river, which gathers the trash and directs it to a central opening. A conveyor belt lifts the rubbish out and drops it into six bins on the barge. When the bins are full, the boat takes the load to the harbour, where a crane and net remove it for processing.

Officials said the Ballona Creek Interceptor has collected more than 200 tons of trash since it was installed in 2022.

James Patterson, head of Ocean Cleanup’s operations for Los Angeles, said each barge is built differently.

“One of the challenges with the LA River and San Gabriel River is the sheer volume of trash,” he said, according to the LA Times. “We need a good extraction method that can actually pull trash out in a rapid amount of time.”

With Long Beach set to host Olympic events including rowing and open swimming, local leaders want cleaner beaches ahead of the Games.

“We want to make sure we present the very best of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and that includes a cleaner, healthier, more beautiful coastline,” Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said about the plan to bring the barge, which costs several million dollars, to the San Gabriel River.

Read more from Good News Network.