Guy dropped out of college to save the planet

Environmental activist Bojan Slat plans to eliminate plastic from the world’s oceans. We found out how the guy wants to do it.

Today the Dutchman Boyan is 27 years old, but he began his activist work while still at school. At 18, Slat spoke at TED, a conference dedicated to unique and interesting innovative ideas. There the guy called our age plastic and addressed the important issue of ocean pollution with plastic waste.

At 19, Boyan dropped out of university and began implementing a one-of-a-kind startup called The Ocean Cleanup.

21-year-old Slat received the status of “Champion of the Earth” and became the youngest owner of this award. And just before his 22nd birthday, the activist presented the first model of his amazing device – the so-called “Cleaner”, which works autonomously and collects sea debris.

In 2018, the first ready-made “cleaner” sailed from the shore and began to perform its functions. Its arcuate design includes tubes with a total length of 600 meters, numerous floats that keep the product afloat, a three-meter-wide fabric that collects pollution, as well as a system of sensors and sensors that counts the garbage collected and transmits information to Country.

Nature itself provides the movement: the structure moves with the help of wind and currents and absorbs energy from sunlight. And since the plastic hangs at a shallow depth and swims rather slowly, it delays and qualitatively catches the dense tissue. At the same time, water inhabitants have the opportunity to freely swim by without falling into a trap.

Every 1-2 months, a special garbage collection ship is sent to such a “cleaner” that picks up plastic waste and brings it ashore, where everything is sorted and recycled.

We have an unbelievable amount of work ahead of us, because around 300 million tons of plastic products are produced every year, which many people throw away thoughtlessly after use. Due to the nature of the current, a huge mass of plastic has already formed between California and Hawaii, which is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This formation is visible even from a great height. And the total weight of plastic waste can be compared to the mass of a thousand Eiffel Towers.

Plastic is extremely dangerous. Stones, water and sand crush and squeeze it, forming fragments of different sizes: from 1-2 millimeters to several meters. Small particles can be eaten by the inhabitants of the oceans and seas. Animals and fish cannot digest plastic and also enter the human body with the flesh of these creatures.

But Boyan Slat is optimistic, believing that by 2040 he will remove about 90% of the Pacific’s entire garbage patch. What do you think of the ideas of this talented and active man?

Source: lemurov.net

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