Dutch engineering student Boyan Slat has invented a cost-effective solution that can help us rid our oceans of plastic for good.
His idea involves putting specially-designed V-shaped booms in the world’s major marine gyres, as it moves across the ocean the water flows under it collecting all the floating plastic. The solution itself is extremely efficient and is already making a huge impact.
According to his site, theoceancleanup.com, a single boom could clean a gyre of plastic in 7-10 years and make a majority of the money spent back by recycling the collected plastic. As a result, this method would be 33 times cheaper than the current cleaning methods used today. As of today, the project has raised $1.2 million in crowd sourced donations and is a well on its way to reaching its goal of 2 million.
The impressive part is that the project came to Slat’s imagination a few years ago when he was only 17 years old, and has since picked up a huge amount support including being featured in a Ted Talk’s video to address the problem and propose his solution. The earth may not be so doomed after all if we keep supporting projects like this one.
Source: Industry Tap
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The Ocean Cleanup Array is an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms will span the radius of a gyre.
The booms act as giant funnels where the angle of the booms effectively 'suck' rubbish in.
The debris enters the platforms, where it will be filtered out of the water and eventually stored in containers until collected for recycling on land.
One of the most significant advantages of using booms instead of nets is that marine life cannot be caught in them.
Furthermore, because the transport of plastic along the booms is driven by the currents, it’s slow enough for organisms to escape.
