Boyan Slat: the youngster who wants to Clean the Oceans of Plastic…!

This is still a concept that the young boyan slat is studying feasibility. But his project raises tremendous hope among tens of thousands of Internet users who have already viewed his video on Youtube. Boyan Slat, 19 years, is considering rid the oceans of plastic pollution in a few years barely ! Just that. He explains in a masterly way his project "The Ocean Cleanup" at TEDx in Delft in the Netherlands

Boyan begins by posing the problem properly. Plastic is now ubiquitous in this “plastic age” that we are living in. Just to eat a cookie, you have to open a plastic packaging in a plastic container, covered with a cardboard box itself surrounded by plastic, and which ends up in a plastic bag! All kinds of food, including bananas, are plasticized !

The problem is that a good part of these plastics will then end up in the oceans to constitute real continents of plastic formed by gyres oceanic (ocean currents forming giant swirls on the ocean scale).

Boyan Slat who is studying aerospace engineering enjoys diving and taking aquatic photos. We see it in the images in the Azores and Greece where he was able to see the extent of plastic pollution: “ I saw more plastic bags than fish ... He explains that plastics are fragmenting into smaller ones pieces of plastics that fix pollutants and integrate the food chain and poison birds, fish and ultimately the man.

Boyan Slat is pragmatic. He considers - rightly - that prevention will not be enough to stem the endemic and intercontinental problem of plastic pollution in the oceans. Unfortunately, we will never be able to prevent all people from throwing their waste into the water ...

Boyan wants to clean the oceans of plastic. But instead of imagining trawlers going out fishing for plastic waste with giant nets (with all the unintentional catches of marine animals and the colossal energy expenditure that would represent), Boyan Slat takes the problem in reverse and will use the enemy (plastic) to his advantage.

He imagines a fixed system to clean the oceans, and he will let the gyres' sea currents do the work, to allow the ocean to self-clean. And that's where his idea is great.

By fixing floating dams (see photo by clicking on the source link) without meshes, he hopes to capture the plastics floating on the surface, which would represent 7.250.000.000 of plastic kilos (ie the weight of 1000 Eiffel Tower). His system would preserve marine animals that could not be trapped, and he thinks of how best to preserve the plankton so precious for the balance of the oceans.

The platforms he imagines would be self-sufficient in marine energies using the energy of waves, currents and the sun. The design is inspired by the manta ray whose outstretched wings would allow the system to operate even in heavy weather. According to his forecasts, the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” could self-clean in 5 years with its system, against 79.000 years estimated by experts… He even thinks that this project could be profitable!

Even if his project seems a little crazy, this original track to rid the oceans of some of their surface pollution deserves to be studied. We can no longer sit idle in front of the ocean that takes care of plastics. We must now begin to clean it, while limiting our discards as much as possible.

More info on: boyanslat.com

Watch the video on: Cetaceans Network