24-Year-Old Genius Boyan Slat Leads The World's Biggest Ocean Cleanup Project

Dec 19, 2018 by apost team

The biggest effort to clean up the 5 trillion pieces of plastic trash in the world's oceans started in early September 2018. While the feat itself is impressive, the fact that the person leading it is just 24 years old is just as cool.

The Dutch inventor named Boyan Slat was first introduced to how much trash was actually in the ocean at the age of 16. He had went diving while in Greece and realized that he was seeing more pieces of plastic in the ocean than fish.

He knew that something needed to change and he became dedicated to OCEAN CLEANUP. The project's goal is to clean up the plastic trash out of the ocean. They're already 2 years ahead of the schedule that they had set for themselves and they don't plan on losing their momentum.

One of the biggest patches of garbage in the Ocean is located between California and Hawaii. They have just started the monumental task of cleaning up this behemoth. They estimate that the patch contains 1.8 trillion things of plastic!

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This seems pretty obvious, but some people don't realize just how big it is. Trying to clean up the Great Pacific Patch would take billions of dollars and take many lifetimes. Basically, it's just not a feasible plan.

With the efforts being made by OCEAN CLEANUP, half of the trash in the garbage patch could be cleaned up in 5 years! This is huge news, especially when you consider that there are at least 4 other giant patches in the oceans of the world as well.

OCEAN CLEANUP is creating floating coastlines in the ocean that float around the ocean by themselves picking up trash. The system that they have created is 600 meters long and has a skirt that goes 3 meters deep. As the system floats through the ocean, the plastic gets caught in the skirt as the current moves it around naturally.

While they may use advanced algorithms to determine where these devices would be the most effective, aside from that they don't require much interference from humans. The lights and other electronic pieces are powered by solar energy and it can be tracked through telemetry that can be viewed in real time.

The progress of the first device will be studied in order to determine what improvements can be made and where they should deploy other systems.

OCEAN CLEANUP explains how their technology works in an interesting video. You can also see Boyan Slat explaining his big plans to get plastic out of the ocean.

What do you do to keep the environment healthy? Do you know anyone who would be interested to know about Boyan's incredible efforts? Then send it to them and spread awareness about such an important project!