- Title: Young Dutchman to shrink Pacific garbage patch by half in five years
- Date: 16th May 2017
- Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (MAY 15, 2017) (REUTERS) THE OCEAN CLEANUP FOUNDER, BOYAN SLAT, SPEAKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) THE OCEAN CLEANUP FOUNDER, BOYAN SLAT, SAYING: "Every year millions of tonnes of plastic enters the oceans and it then concentrates in five areas of the world, called ocean garbage patches, and the largest one of these is the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is halfway between Hawaii and California. And in the past people have proposed to clean this up with boats and nets, but this will take many thousands of years and billions of dollars. So what we then figured was instead of going after the plastic, we let the plastic come to us, using very long floating barriers which sort of float around, to let the ocean clean itself by using the natural ocean currents in our advantage. And now it turns out we can actually clean up 50% of this garbage patch in just five year's time."
- Embargoed: 30th May 2017 14:20
- Keywords: recycling plastic Boyan Slat ocean sea pollution Environment
- Location: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM/ THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS/ AT SEA/ CALIFORNIA, US
- City: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM/ THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS/ AT SEA/ CALIFORNIA, US
- Country: Belgium
- Topics: Pollution,Environment,Human Interest / Brights / Odd News
- Reuters ID: LVA0046H38A4N
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Tonnes of plastic garbage in the Pacific Ocean could disappear by half in five years with the help of inflatable collecting barriers, a 22-year-old Dutchman envisions.
Boyan Slat, who started his project called The Ocean Cleanup in 2013, said he will deploy their first floating barrier in 2018 to collect plastic which has accumulated in the "garbage patch" between Hawaii and California.
Slat contends that hundreds of species are already threatened with extinction because of plastic pollution, the problem becoming more acute over time as larger chunks of plastic have broken down into smaller pieces and entered the food chain.
He says conventional methods like vessels and nets are not sufficient to collect the garbage. Instead, he proposes a floating pipe system, that will catch and concentrate plastic, together with a screen that will trap sub-surface debris.
The U-shaped, flexible floating boom, stretching 1-2 km (0.62 to 1.24 miles), is designed to follow the currents. The screen is meant to catch anything from coin-sized plastic particles to large fishing nets.
The collected plastic will then be brought back to shore and recycled.
The project, currently in the prototype phase, has raised $31 million, according to TheInertia website. Slat is still seeking additional funding.
Once the Pacific Ocean system is in place, the young inventor plans to roll it out in other ocean zones where man-made waste has accumulated, albeit in smaller quantities than in the Pacific.
Some marine experts have criticised the project, saying cleaning up in the middle of the ocean is a wasted effort and takes away from the real problem, which is the amount of plastic that enters.
Another problem posed is the possible disruption to marine life such as plankton.
Slat, who dropped out of university to start the project, said he had the idea of collecting plastic while he was diving in Greece when he was 16.
He now runs a team of more than 60 people and has the backing of some major companies such as dredger Boskalis and chemical group Akzo Nobel. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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