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turbinetree

(24,632 posts)
Sat Sep 8, 2018, 11:16 PM Sep 2018

A Dutch Teenager Had a Dream to Clean Up the World's Oceans. 7 Years On, It's Coming True

Billy Perrigo
September 7, 2018


For someone who gets violently seasick, Boyan Slat spends a lot of time thinking about the ocean. The Dutch inventor has designed the world’s first ocean plastic cleanup system but admits he won’t be on the ship with it when it launches out of San Francisco on Saturday. “I am not a man of the sea,” he says.

After five and a half years of hard work, the 23-year-old Slat will watch from dry land as System 001 — a floating barrier nearly 2,000ft long — snakes its way out under the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific. Its destination is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gyre of plastic waste twice the size of Texas held in position by ocean currents between California and Hawaii.

If all goes to plan, Slat says, an array of 60 systems could reduce the amount of plastic there by half by 2025. “I hope that this will be a turning point for the plastic pollution problem,” Slat tells TIME in a phone interview a few days before the launch, in between final preparations. “For sixty years it has only gotten worse and worse. Now hopefully we’re turning the tide.”

The eradication of the garbage patch, and more broadly the salvation of our oceans, has been Slat’s single-minded goal ever since he was 16 years old, when a diving trip to Greece yielded more plastic bag sightings than fish. Struck by the idea for a floating barrier that could collect plastic using the power of ocean currents alone, he founded his company, The Ocean Cleanup, aged just 18.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/dutch-teenager-had-dream-clean-154044582.html

7 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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A Dutch Teenager Had a Dream to Clean Up the World's Oceans. 7 Years On, It's Coming True (Original Post) turbinetree Sep 2018 OP
K&R Stonepounder Sep 2018 #1
K & R. Wonderful, bright young man giving us hope. Thanks for posting. appalachiablue Sep 2018 #2
Your welcome turbinetree Sep 2018 #7
The Dutch have a special relationship with the Sea... This is very exciting. Hekate Sep 2018 #3
Well done, and thank you! n/t EleanorR Sep 2018 #4
Here's their web site.... KY_EnviroGuy Sep 2018 #5
Here's a replay of yesterday's whole system launch... lamp_shade Sep 2018 #6

Stonepounder

(4,033 posts)
1. K&R
Sun Sep 9, 2018, 01:10 AM
Sep 2018

I remember reading about this years ago. I had completely forgotten about it until this post. What a young man!

KY_EnviroGuy

(14,483 posts)
5. Here's their web site....
Sun Sep 9, 2018, 02:04 AM
Sep 2018

for anyone wanting to learn more:

The Ocean Cleanup

Link: https://www.theoceancleanup.com/

(snips)

Trash accumulates in 5 ocean garbage patches, the largest one being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California. If left to circulate, the plastic will impact our ecosystems, health and economies. Solving it requires a combination of closing the source, and cleaning up what has already accumulated in the ocean.
-------
The Ocean Cleanup develops advanced technologies to rid the world's oceans of plastic. A full-scale deployment of our systems is estimated to clean up 50 % of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 5 years.

Thanks for this timely update, turbinetree.....

lamp_shade

(14,796 posts)
6. Here's a replay of yesterday's whole system launch...
Sun Sep 9, 2018, 05:54 AM
Sep 2018

It's 2 hrs 38 min long but FASCINATING and WELL WORTH watching... full of fun facts and mini-docs... nary a boring moment.
(Note: skip to 22:54)

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