In our series of Eco Blogs, First Class Sailing is discovering a variety of issues that concern people who use the seas. In the previous blog we highlighted Ecover's new bottle of which 10% of the plastic is reclaimed from the sea.
We didn't realise that plastic in our oceans was such a large scale problem and as you will read below it is going to take quite a challenge to clean up our mess.
Luckily for us there are people like Boyan Slat who are not only forward thinking but also full of enough inspirational energy to get this project off the ground and attract like minded people to his campaign.
Spotting the Problem of Plastic in the Oceans
For most teenagers, finishing school at three o'clock and heading home to do homework, watch television and see their friends is what constitutes a normal day. Life is about enjoying oneself, and capturing the end of your childhood years before responsibility and ambition take over as an adult.
The problem of plastic in the ocean is massive. Boyan Slat, however, was no normal teenage boy.
From the age of 16, he had become a man on a mission. His drive, which some have described as 'obsessive' was focussed entirely on one thing: cleaning up the Earth's oceans.
Inspired by a diving trip in Greece, where to his astonishment, Boyan encountered more plastic than fish, he started a campaign to rid the world's oceans of their litter, and began his designs for a machine that would make it a reality.
Designing the Natural Removal Tool
Initially, his design was for a high school science project, and it was awarded the Best Technical Design at Delft University of Technology. However, that was not enough for Slat, and displaying extraordinary perseverance and determination, he continued working on his project.
It consists of a platform in the ocean, which is capable of extracting plastic from its surroundings. Barriers would be erected in the seas, and plastic will be caught in the barriers and gradually pulled into the platform to be removed from the ocean.
The best part is, though, that the ocean currents will move under the barriers ensuring that while plastic is caught in them, no marine life will be damaged or disturbed, and there are no nets or emissions which could be a danger to wildlife.
The extracted plastic will then be taken ashore where it will be turned into other products – or oil – through recycling.
Slat set up his own online campaign to fund this idea. His foundation, Ocean Cleanup, was dedicated to collecting donations for recovering and recycling ocean plastic.
The campaign begins (Photo: Rita Leistner/ Ocean Conservancy)
It's Good to Talk
Initially, he did not receive much support and was forced to approach sponsors; this was also fruitless, however, and the campaign looked like it was about to die out. However, by a stroke of luck, Slat hosted a TedX Talk on his foundation and a few months after it hit the web, it went viral. Thousands of people watched it each day and the profile of his campaign went through the roof.
To this day, Slat is unaware of what caused his TedX talk to go global, but he maintains that it is the reason his foundation has gone so far already.
Volunteers were emailing him daily offering donations and funding for his ocean cleanup project. Slat began appearing more frequently in the public eye, the 19-year old who was the face of this new and innovating project that could actually, feasibly de-litter the world's oceans.
Of course, with fame and support also came much criticism. There are better ways to do it, people said, less costly ways, less time-consuming ways. Once the litter's out there, it's pointless, people said, focus on stopping the dumping in the first place.
So, with his accumulated team of 70 oceanographers and scientists worldwide, Slat removed himself from the public forum and worked tirelessly on his project, halting both his social and university life in order to finish it.
Starting the clean-up in Ireland (photo: Ocean Conservancy)
Battling Negativity
Then, in June 2014, he re-emerged with a 530-page report detailing every response to his critics and planning out how, with the funding he is currently receiving, his invention could become a reality in the North Atlantic as soon as 2020.
Of course, there are still cogent arguments against the project; it is true that if it were to be focused on river outlets instead of the ocean itself, it might prevent the majority of the problem in the future and make the monumental task of cleaning up the plastic just a little bit easier. Slat, though, maintains that while it is very difficult to adapt a river project to work in the ocean, it would be much, much easier to find something that works in the sea and alter it to work successfully in rivers; and has, indeed, mentioned that this is something he is interested in working towards in the near future, after his North Atlantic platform is constructed.
Dedicated to the Planet
Of course, being so young, Slat is missing his university years, and working 15-hour days he hardly ever sees his friends or has time for socialising.
He doesn't mind, though, and claims that at the moment, all he has to lose is his study funding, so he wanted to get out and make his dream a reality while he still had the chance – the sooner you start, the further you'll go.
Slat wants his success story to serve as inspiration to young entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere – that it's never too early to follow your dreams and really make a difference.
