[imagesource: The Ocean Cleanup / Facebok]

A young Dutch inventor, Boyan Slat, is so passionate about addressing planetary problems that he gave up his pursuit of an Aerospace Engineering degree, and armed with only €300 of saved-up pocket money, launched a non-profit organisation responsible for the largest ocean cleanup in history.

As humble as the origins of The Ocean Cleanup might have been, the 30-year-old is now CEO of a company that plans to remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.

Momentum for the ambitious project really took off after Boyan’s 2012 TEDx presentation was picked up and publicised by various news blogs, causing the idea to go viral. This momentum allowed Boyan to assemble an initial team of volunteers and launch a crowdfunding campaign that funded a year-long feasibility study – the first real step in bringing his technological solutions to life.

And it all started with a scuba dive in Greece when he was 16. Finding more plastic bags than fish in the sea, Boyan was left thinking “Why can’t we just clean this up?”.

 

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He started looking into the problem and possible technological solutions to clean up ocean plastic pollution, dedicating a school project to developing his idea further – which later became the basis for his famous TED talk.

In the following years, Boyan led the organisation through the initial scientific work, testing and concept iterations leading to successfully achieving Proof of Technology in 2021 for both river interception and cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Today, The Ocean Cleanup is actively cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and has deployed Interceptors in some of the world’s most polluting rivers to prevent plastic from reaching the ocean in the first place.

 

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To see their progress, you can visit the Impact Dashboard, but as of writing this post, 18,174,062 kilograms of trash has been collected from the world’s oceans. That’s a lot of Coca-Cola bottles and plastic bags.

“When people say something is impossible, the sheer absoluteness of that statement should be a motivation to investigate further.”

Today, The Ocean Cleanup’s headquarters are in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, has over 120 employees from more than 30 countries. In the role of CEO, Boyan focuses on strategy and relationships with key partners, but continues to be deeply involved in the organization’s scientific and technological work, through which he has co-authored around a dozen scientific papers and multiple patents.

 

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Not bad for a kid who once nearly burned down a house due to a chemistry experiment gone wrong. It’s terribly sad though that an accidental arsonist’s dream of a cleaner ocean is easily within reach for okes like Bezos, who ironically cruise around the very same oceans on a yacht that could fund the 90%-clean dream easily.

[source:theoceancleanup]