00:35 Cleanup Device Will Attempt to Remove Great Pacific Garbage Patch The Ocean Cleanup Foundation will launch a trash collector, System 001, next month.

At a Glance A 60-foot end section of the 2,000-foot boom that collects the plastic bits detached.

The contraption will be towed back to port for 'repairs and upgrades.'

An ocean-saving device deployed in September to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has malfunctioned and will have to be towed back to port.

During a routine inspection on Dec. 29, crew members discovered that a 60-foot end section of one of the booms that scoops up trash from the surface of the ocean had detached, 23-year-old inventor Boyan Slat wrote in a Jan. 1 blog post.

"Although it is too early to confirm the cause of the malfunction, we hypothesize that material fatigue (caused by about 106 load cycles), combined with a local stress concentration, caused a fracture in the HDPE floater," Slat wrote.

The young inventor noted that the break in the device did not pose any danger for the crew, environment or passing marine traffic.

The team said it will be returning to port to "repair and upgrade" the device that is dubbed "Wilson" by the crew after the volleyball in the Tom Hanks movie "Castaway." They will also be bringing back more than 4,400 pounds of plastic collected from the garbage patch.

(MORE: Great Pacific Garbage Patch Is Now Twice the Size of Texas and It's Rapidly Getting Worse)

Slat said he and his team are "quite bummed" that they are required to return to port ahead of schedule but are optimistic for continued success.

"We also realize that setbacks like this are inevitable when pioneering new technology at a rapid pace," he wrote.

Back in September, Slat and his team at the non-profit organization he founded, the Ocean Cleanup Project , watched as his 2,000-foot-long invention left San Francisco for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest collection of ocean plastics in the world located between California and Hawaii.

The team believes the cleanup system will be able to scoop up 50 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within five years, according to the project website.

Slat noted in his blog post that once fully operational, the system is expected to harvest 2,200 pounds of plastic per week.

"Although we would have liked to end the year on a more positive note, we believe these teething troubles are solvable, and the cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be operational in 2019," Slat wrote. "The fact that the cleanup system orients itself in the wind, is able to follow the waves well and is able to catch and concentrate plastic gives us confidence in the technology."