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For someone who has severe seasickness, Boyan Slat spends a lot of time thinking about the ocean. The Dutch inventor designed the world's first ocean plastic cleaning system but admits he will not be on the ship when it launches in San Francisco on Saturday. "I'm not a seafarer," he says.
After five and a half years of hard work, Slat, 23, will be watching System 001 – a floating barrier nearly 2,000 feet long – sneaks under the Golden Gate Bridge in the Pacific. Its destination is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gyre of plastic waste twice as big as that of Texas, held by the ocean currents between California and Hawaii.
If everything goes as planned, according to Mr Slat, a series of 60 systems could reduce the amount of plastic by half by 2025. "I hope this will be a turning point for the plastic pollution problem. "said Slat at TIME. a few days before the launch, between the final preparations. "For sixty years, the situation has only worsened. Now, let's hope we turn the tide. "
The eradication of the trash and, more broadly, the rescue of our oceans, has been the sole objective of Slat since he was 16, when a dive trip to Greece allowed to observe more plastic bags only fish. Struck by the idea of a floating barrier capable of collecting plastic using only the power of ocean currents, he founded his company, The Ocean Cleanup, just 18 years old.
Boyan Slat, CEO of The Ocean Cleanup
The cleaning of the ocean
The idea has attracted imagination around the world. In 2015, an early prototype of System 001 was featured on TIME 2015's Best Inventions list. The project has come a long way since then, says Slat. "It takes a trained eye to see the similarities."
What was originally envisioned as a large rigid barrier arranged around a central plastic collection tank, is today a remote-controlled and modular system that moves with currents, naturally gravitating toward areas of higher concentration. From the air, it looks like a pipeline lying on the surface of the sea, but under the waves is a "skirt" 10 feet deep that traps the plastic accumulated by the current.
Because the system is solid rather than clean, Slat says marine life will be protected against the risk of being trapped. The hope is that the plastic accumulates like at the seaside, ready to be collected by boats and to be recycled.
It is an ambitious plan, which has received millions of dollars thanks to rapidly changing public opinion on plastics. In December 2017, 193 countries signed a US resolution to eliminate plastic pollution from the oceans, and major companies like McDonald's decided to remove single-use plastics from their stores. (Some say it's not fast enough.) The United States says that more than 8 million tonnes of plastics still enter the oceans each year – the equivalent of a plastic-filled garbage truck at each minute.
But reducing our dependence on plastic is only half of the equation, says Slat. "These fixes will not go away on their own. Even if we shut off the tap today, the plastic would still be there in 100 years.
001 system floating in San Francisco Bay before launch
The cleaning of the ocean
Slat sees his mission as a race against time. Plastic is gradually broken down into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics that can eventually enter the food chain. According to a study published by The Ocean Cleanup published in the journal, microplastics currently represent only 8% of the mass of plastic in the household waste of the Pacific. Scientific reports. "But, of course, what will happen in the next few decades is that the remaining 92% of plastic will also be transformed into microplastics," says Slat. "So the sooner we come out, the better."
A thorny question remains about what will happen to plastic brought down from the systems of The Ocean Cleanup. Slat says he wants to make it a branded merchandise, but acknowledges that everything depends on the quality of the plastic, which remains a mystery. In any case, most plastics in the oceans are for single use, says Slat. "By doing nothing for a single use, you can already reduce by 99% the risk of returning to the oceans," he says.
But it is possible that much of the waste returned to the land will have to be transported to third-party recycling facilities and eventually recycled into more single-use plastics that may one day return to the oceans. The task ahead is not so much Herculean as it is sisyphean.
Nevertheless, Slat is not easily dissuaded. "Big problems require big solutions," he says. "If someone has better ideas, we would like to know it."
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