19-year-old
Boyan Slat has unveiled plans to create an Ocean Cleanup Array that
could remove 7,250,000 tons of plastic waste from the world’s oceans.
The device consists of an anchored network of floating booms and
processing platforms that could be dispatched to garbage patches around
the world. Instead of moving through the ocean, the array would span the
radius of a garbage patch, acting as a giant funnel.
The angle of the booms would force plastic in the direction of the
platforms, where it would be separated from plankton, filtered and
stored for recycling.
At
school, Boyan Slat launched a project that analyzed the size and amount
of plastic particles in the ocean’s garbage patches. His final paper
went on to win several prizes, including Best Technical Design 2012 at
the Delft University of Technology. Boyan continued to develop his
concept during the summer of 2012, and he revealed it several months
later at TEDxDelft 2012.
Slat went on to found The Ocean Cleanup Foundation, a non-profit
organization which is responsible for the development of his proposed
technologies. His ingenious solution could potentially save hundreds of
thousands of aquatic animals annually, and reduce pollutants (including
PCB and DDT) from building up in the food chain. It could also save
millions per year, both in clean-up costs, lost tourism and damage to
marine vessels.
It
is estimated that the clean-up process would take about five years, and
it could greatly increase awareness about the world’s plastic garbage
patches. On his site Slat says, “One of the problems with preventive
work
is that there isn’t any imagery of these ‘garbage patches’, because the
debris is dispersed over millions of square kilometres. By placing our
arrays however, it will accumulate along the booms, making it suddenly
possible to actually visualize the oceanic garbage patches. We need to
stress the importance of recycling, and reducing our consumption of
plastic packaging.
Source:
inhabitat.com
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