Victoria, Canada – The Ocean Cleanup project has picked up nearly 29 tons of plastic waste from the Pacific Ocean during a testing phase of its technology lasting several weeks.

The haul was put together in nine missions, the organization said on Wednesday in Victoria, Canada.

The Ocean Cleanup project founder and chief Boyan Slat told journalists this successful test was proof that the technology works and that the oceans can be cleaned of rubbish.

"These are the most important 29,000kg [ca. 64,000 lbs] we'll ever collect," the organization said in a tweet.

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"Because these kilos show that we can also clean the other 100 million kilos [ca. 220 million lbs.] of plastic. We just have to collect this amount of trash 3000 times, and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will only exist in history books."

The experimental system, known as both System 002 and by the nickname Jenny, set off from Canada's west coast in July with the aim of collecting waste from the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California.

Scientists estimate that more than 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing an estimated 80,000 tons, are in the patch, brought in by ocean currents.

System 002 consists of the two vessels which pull a 2,620-foot-long retention system slowly through the plastic-rich areas. Waste enters the system at the open end, where plastic is then transported into the system's retention zone.

Jenny is now slated to set sail again on Thursday, the company said, while it starts developing System 003, which it said will be three times the size of Jenny to increase the operations' efficiency and performance.

The aim is to halve the amount of garbage in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch every five years.