Explore Boyan Slat’s revolutionary efforts to combat marine debris. At just 18, he initiated a global movement to cleanse our oceans, turning an ambitious idea into groundbreaking reality.
<Marine Debris News>
“The amount of trash leaking into the ocean is on the rise every year,
forming a trash island in the ocean.”
**Today, marine plastic waste is estimated to be around 2.3 million tons. In terms of area, that’s 3 times the size of France.
Perhaps you have asked this question before, “Why can’t we just scoop up all of the marine debris with a huge net?” And then realized how vast the ocean is.
But there was one boy who actually put the idea into action.
Boyan Slat
18 years old, New Zealand
“Why don’t we build a fence around the currents to collect the trash?”
In 2013, Boyan Slat published the 528-page Ocean Cleanup Plan and launched a global fundraising campaign.
Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit organization.
He dropped out of school, foounded the Ocean Cleanup, and gathered marine professionals and volunteers. His bold plan was featured in American science magazine <Popular Science>, and the British newspaper <The Guardian>.
“Let’s reduce 50% of the world’s marine plastic within the next 10 years!”
After one year of fundraising, 3,800 supporters from 69 countries raised $2.2 million. Boyan used that money to rent a spacecraft and an aircraft to observe the marine debris in the oceans. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch measured to be 1.6 ㎢, which was 10 times larger than expected.
In 2018, the Ocean Cleanup launched a marine debris cleanup system called the “System 001” after 5 years of extensive research.
<How System 001 Works>
- Install fences made of eco-friendly materials in places where ocean currents circle and gather.
- Marine debris is caught in the fence while marine organisms escape under the fence
- Once marine debris is piles inside the fence, it is collected all at once.
The collected plastics is then recycled and made into products like sunglasses, and the proceeds were reinvested in ocean cleanup efforts. After continuous research, the upgraded System 002 was launched in 2022. And 30 tons of marine debris were collected within 2 months. System 003 is under development, and once it is launched, the largest slump of marine debris called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch may vanish within the next 5 years.
*Follow the link below to learn more about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
https://theoceancleanup.com/
“We aim to clean up 90% of floating ocean plastic by the year 2040.”
Boyan Slat
One passionate leader is solving the problem that we all thought was impossible to solve. One student’s bold courage to do what everybody said was impossible is creating a miracle.
