Boyan Slat, a 20-year old innovator from Netherlands has a mission to achieve. And it’s nothing less than cleaning up the oceans! Boyan is all set to rid the oceans of million tons of plastic garbage that flow with the current.
The gigantic rotating currents in the world’s oceans make monitoring and collecting garbage difficult. Slat’s Ocean Cleanup Foundation is working on a way to use that current to get rid of the problem. Slat envisions long-distance arrays of floats that would skim garbage from the surface while allowing aquatic life to carry on, undisturbed. The company estimates that a 10km stationary cleanup array could remove 42% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch over 10 years, that makes up over 70,320,000 kg of plastic waste. For starters, they are installing a 2,000m trial system in Japan, which will become the longest floating structure in the world when completed.
This 2,000m floating line will become the longest floating structure in the world when it’s installed in 2016.
This is the first stage in 20-year old Boyan Slat’s plan to rid the world’s oceans of garbage.
The plan involves targeting rotating ocean currents full of waste and skimming trash from them.
His goal is to build a 100 km floating array that can collect 70,320,000 kg of plastic waste over a period of 10 years.
Slat estimates that this method would cost roughly 4.53 euros (5.04 USD) per kilogram, which is just 3% of the cost of other potential clean-up methods.
