Boyan Slat, aged 20, had an idea to remove plastic trash from the ocean by placing floating barriers anchored to the seabed. The barriers would catch plastic floating on the surface by utilizing natural currents and enable a platform to efficiently extract the plastic afterwards. And now his idea will become reality in 2016 through the Ocean Cleanup initiative.
In a pilot launch, a 200 meter long floating barrier will be placed near Tsushima Island (located between Japan and Korea). If the test runs smoothly, the group plans to launch a second barrier 100 kilometers in length. While it’s impractical to use ships to clean plastic trash from the ocean, a 100 kilometer long stationary barrier could viably reduce the size of the famous Great Pacific Garbage Patch almost in half over the course of 10 years. [h/t demilked.com]
