Every year, there are approximately 14 billion pounds worth of trash dumped into Earth’s oceans. There are a handful of problems associated with garbage occupying our bodies of water. Harming habitats, putting animals in danger, and supplying our clean waters with chemicals and germs are just a few of the dozens of reasons humans should be more conscious regarding where they dispose of their trash.
At the young age of 18, Boyan Slat from Delft, Netherlands created a non-profit to aid with this very problem. When The Ocean Cleanup was founded in 2013, the young engineer and inventor came up with different technologies to make cleaning garbage from the oceans quicker and more effective than ever before. With his invention known as The Interceptor™, his team has been and continues to remove debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific trash vortex. The ultimate goal of The Ocean Cleanup is to eliminate 90% of floating plastic in ocean waters by 2040.
Although the ocean project is going well, and he and his team verified that they are capable of collecting microplastics just a millimeter in size, now Slat has plans to not only remove garbage from the north-central Pacific Ocean but also from the world’s rivers.
Through research, The Ocean Cleanup team discovered that a thousand of Earth’s rivers are to blame for transferring 80% of the trash that enter our oceans. So, by tackling the cleanup of these rivers, the non-profit can not only keep these littered rivers clean but can prevent a large amount of garbage from entering ocean waters from the start.
Thanks to Slat’s invention of The Interceptor™, taking on the river-cleaning project will be significantly smoother than using conventional methods.
The solar-powered boat features a barrier that scoops trash to the front of the barge where a built-in conveyer belt then lifts and dumps the trash into one of six dumpsters inside The Interceptor™. At its peak efficiency, The Interceptor™ can remove 220,000 pounds of trash a day.
By 2025, The Ocean Cleanup hopes to have an Incterceptor™ in 1,000 of the most polluted rivers around the world. The fact that these trash-removing devices are easy to manufacture makes Slat and his team’s goal very possible.
Regardless of criticism his project has received in the past, Slat is positive that his technology will continue to make a noticeable impact on our world’s oceans and rivers. “I’m confident that, considering we created this problem, we should also be able to solve it,” he shared with Business Insider.
Learn more about Slat’s project and the technologies he uses in the video below.
