28-year-old Boyan Slat from the Netherlands is the inventor of a system for catching waste in the ocean, and he’s called the project The Ocean Cleanup.
When Boyan was 16 years old, he was diving with friends in Greece and found that there was more garbage in the sea than living things. While diving, Boyan and his friends found that they were swimming amongst plastic and fish, and for the first time, they realized the severity of ocean pollution.
Research shows that plastics are the largest ocean pollutant and make up between 60%-80% of the total pollution in our oceans. World Economic Forum released a research report showing that 8,000,000 tons of plastic waste still flows into the ocean every year. This is the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck’s worth of plastic into the ocean every minute.
If we were to continue using the current ocean pollution cleanup method, it’s estimated to take at least 79,000 years to remove all the litter from the ocean.
Focus on innovative ideas, then put them into action
Boyan had no relevant background, so he started reading many books and research papers to get up to speed with the state of ocean pollution and the related industries.
While attending college, Boyan spent his entire life savings of €300 (about NT$9,000) on researching a solution to the problem. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find a company willing to sponsor his ideas for improving global marine ecology. Therefore, to fulfil his dream of cleaning up the ocean as quickly as possible, Boyan decided to drop out of college only 6 months after enrolling.
Resolutely he said, “My goal is to solve the world’s ocean pollution problem. There’s no reason for me to continue studying at college when I have the opportunity to implement significant change.” We should all try to share this determination to always be better and believe that we can change the world.
After leaving college, Boyan founded The Ocean Cleanup and in just 15 days, he raised about NT$2.4 million on a fundraising platform. At only 19 years old, he formed a research team of 100 scientists and engineers. Then, he travelled around the world to continue his research and showcase the design of his ocean cleanup project. The 100 researchers wrote more than 500 pages of technical reviews that endorsed Boyan’s designs and plans a year later.
The“ocean vacuum cleaner”, called System 001, is a‘fence’formed by a 600-meter-long, 3-meter-deep floating pole. It uses transmitters and sensors to periodically communicate with satellites, which then sends garbage trawlers to clean up the area. It can catch 18 trillion pieces of plastic waste without harming marine life. It’s also 7,900 times faster than the traditional method of pulling nets behind boats to catch litter, and it’s 97% cheaper.
System 001 set off from San Francisco in 2019 and successfully cleared the first batch of plastic waste from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It collected trash that varied in size from car tires to debris as small as one millimetre.
Believe in your power to change the world and don’t be afraid of failure
“When ideas are confronted with reality, there will always be surprises.”
This famous quote from Boyan Slat shows that there is no need for a long and complicated plan to help the ocean; just do it. With messy hair and lots of confidence, Boyan was selected by Intel as one of the top 20 most promising young entrepreneurs in the world. He is also the youngest and highest-ranking environmental ambassador in the history of the United Nations.
Boyan is undoubtedly walking a very different path. He understands the need to think and act quickly and decisively and not be afraid of failure because things don’t always go according to plan. Slat, who became the CEO of the Netherlands Ocean Cleanup Foundation at a young age, proves that nothing is impossible.
