Teen Inventor Develops Way To Rid The Sea of Plastic

Millions of tons of plastic pollute our oceans, and they are helping drive oceanic ecosystems towards collapse. A solution is needed to remove this garbage, to help in clearing and purifying our waters. Unfortunately, current and previous efforts have been unable to meet the ever-increasing need. Commonly, plastic materials reach the oceans via rivers and waterways, and most likely accumulate in one of five areas of high plastic concentration; Gyres.

A 19 year old Dutch student, Boyan Slat, has developed a model for a floating device designed to address this problem, and ideally rid the oceans of plastic trash. Although being hailed as a feasible method by various media sources, the official site for the engineering student had this to say:

“This is an incorrect statement; we are currently only at about 1/4th of completing our feasibility study. Only after finishing that study, we believe such statements should be made. Although the preliminary results look promising, and our team of about 50 engineers, modellers, external experts and students is making good progress, we had and have no intention of presenting a concept as a feasible solution while still being in the investigative phase.”

Although still largely in the conceptual phase, the invention seems to promise a solution to the growing problem of plastic garbage in our waters. The array is designed to be made of manta-ray shaped platforms, with ocean currents pushing the plastic debris into the collector (floating on the surface, since bits of plastic float to the top). The machine is solar and water powered (wave action), and is able to separate plastic at a particle level, from collected animal life and release those back into the ocean. Floating booms would sift plastics from the water with little bycatch.

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