“I have invented a method to clean up almost half of the great Pacific’s garbage patch in just 10 years, using the currents to my advantage.”
Boyan Slat first presented his ideas during a TEDx Talk in Delft, which has inspired many people to assist him in working out his ideas. He was recognized as one of the 20 Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs Worldwide (Intel EYE50).
Global warming is not the only environmental nightmare that scientists are struggling to solve.
Countless short tons of plastic waste rubbish the oceans of the world, converging in rotating currents blanketing the surface of the water and called gyres. These gyres on average, hold six times more plastic than plankton.
Slat first became attentive to the issue while diving in Greece, frustrated that he was “coming across more plastic bags than fish.”
He asked himself, “Why can not we clean this up?”
Another 100,000 marine mammals and at least one million birds die each year and the oceans being circulated by a number of species risk extinction as a result of the huge quantities of garbage floating in the ocean. Garbage that we, the human race, are responsible for.
Economically, marine debris costs an estimated $1.27 billion per annum in fishing and boat damage on America’s Pacific coastal waters.