There are some amazing people doing great things to help our planet, who remain largely unheard of outside the 'environmental community'. We want to put a spotlight on these Planet Heroes and give them some of the recognition they so highly deserve.
In the first post in our series on Planet Heroes we feature Boyan Slat the founder of The Ocean Cleanup.
Boyan Slat in Guatemala. Picture Credit: The Ocean Cleanup.
At just 16 years of age Boyan Slat was SKUBA diving on a Greek holiday and saw more plastic bags in the water than fish. Asking himself the simple question "Why can't we just clean this up?" started an adventure that led him to be the youngest person to win the United Nations Champions of the Earth Award in 2014 and founding and leading The Ocean Cleanup towards their current target of removing 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.
After returning from his vacation in Greece he dedicated a school project to looking in to possible technological solutions for cleaning up ocean plastic pollution. He followed this by presenting his ideas at a TEDx conference in 2012. In early 2013 the TEDx video went viral giving Boyan the courage and momentum to drop out of his studies and found The Ocean Cleanup. Progress was initially slow but for a second time the internet picked up his story with various news blogs picking up his TEDx video and once again sending it viral. This allowed him to put together a team of volunteers and crowdfund his first year of research.
Now in 2022 less than 10 years since the TEDx conference and still under 30 years old, Boyan's Ocean Cleanup has so far removed 1,740,149kg* of plastic, nearly 2% of the estimated 100,000,000kg in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and this is just during the development stage of the project. They have also deployed 8 'interceptors' in 5 countries which stop the flow of plastics down rivers into the ocean, and aim to place them on the 1000 rivers they believe are responsible for 80% of the plastic flowing into our oceans.
System 03 - The largest clean up system so far which is used to 'harvest' plastic from the ocean and is expected to be the blueprint design for scaling to a fleet of systems. Photo Credit: The Ocean Cleanup.
Boyan's story not only shows the great things that can be achieved when you truly believe in your cause but also the power of the internet to promote and support a pioneering project. Though the project goes from strength to strength Boyan will be the first to tell you that to achieve the goal of removing 90% of ocean plastic by 2040 The Ocean Cleanup needs your support. You can help by donating here theoceancleanup.com/donate and by supporting them on Twitter @BoyanSlat and @TheOceanCleanup.
*Source: The Ocean Cleanup Dashboard 27/10/2022.
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