Dear Fellow Earthlings,
Ever since I began writing this blog, I have been aware of the huge "islands" of plastic and other trash that cover thousands of square miles of the north central Pacific Ocean. In my June 13, 2013 blog installment I wrote:
"At present, we do not have the technology to deal with these plastics, so our
primary goal should be the to prevent them from getting into Earth’s oceans
and seas."
I have been expounding on this very serious threat to Earth's ecosystem for the past 13 years — and have cited various individuals who have been making great efforts to spur others on to do the same and/or have actually conceived of and are currently implementing concrete methods towards achieving those ends. Among the names I have cited are Tom McCall, Mark Carney, Benjamin Santer, Federica Bertocchini, Charlotte Ambrose, John Ambrose, Isabel Wijsen, Melati Wijsen, Stephen Hawking and — in today’s installment — “Friend of Earth” Boyan Slat. (Please use the word finder /search function for my blogs to see details about how these persons have made/are making sincere efforts to take care of the problems caused from humans' mismanagement of this Earth-unfriendly, manmade group of substances.)
In 2011, while diving in the Aegean Sea, then 16-year-old Boyan Slat was struck by a disturbing sight: he saw more plastic bags than fish. And he didn't want the Aegean -- or any other body of water -- to suffer such a fate.
Even while most people who happened to learn about the sudden appearance of "islands" being referred to as "the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP)" took the stance that little if anything could be done to put an end to such a "result of progress" for utilizing residual substances produced in petroleum refinement into usable fossil fuels which had been made— the swirling mass of debris spanning over a million square kilometers by 2015 was viewed "as an unsolvable tragedy"...
But Slat decided to act!!!
Experts at the time claimed the GPGP was impossible to clean, citing exorbitant costs and the daunting scale of the task. However, Slat began studying the physics of ocean currents in the Dutch city of Delft. He proposed a shift in logic: instead of chasing plastic across the sea, why not let the ocean’s own currents bring the plastic to those spots on Earth through at which the waster was pouring into our ocens and seas?
Slat’s vision centered on a massive "passive" barrier system. In May 2012, Slat presented his idea in a TED talk "How the Oceans Can Clean Themselves." The video went viral, and by October 2013, the “Ocean Cleanup” was officially born. To prove the concept, he spearheaded a 528-page feasibility study involving 79 scientists and engineers. The project’s subsequent crowd funding campaign raised over $2.1 million from 38,000 donors across 160 countries — the most successful non-profit crowd funding effort up to that time.
The effort had its log jams. The greatest one was in 2018, when the first system of manmade channeling system, designed to funnel pollution detritus. fractured after only a few months. While critics labeled the project a failure, Slat and his associates made the erstwhile failure into a learning tool. They realized the system needed to move slower than the plastic in order not to “permeate it” but to retain it. In 2019, they deployed "System 001/B," equipped with a parachute anchor to create drag. It worked—capturing everything from huge commercial fishing nets to microplastics as small as 1mm.
During this process, the team made a critical discovery: just 1,000 rivers (roughly 1% of the world's total) are responsible for 80% of all plastic entering the ocean. This led to the birth of the "Interceptor"—an autonomous, solar-powered floating platform anchored at river mouths. Using a diagonal barrier and the river’s own kinetic energy, the Interceptor can extract 50,000 to 100,000 kg of plastic daily. By intercepting waste at the source, these platforms effectively "cut off the pipeline" before it ever reaches the open sea.
As of 2025, 20 Interceptors were operating across nine countries. The extracted plastic is sorted by type and degradation level. While 80% of ocean plastic is often too degraded for traditional recycling, it is processed through energy recovery or controlled disposal to ensure it never returns to the natural environment.
The estimated cost to clear the GPGP entirely is $7.7 billion over 10 years, with a goal to remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.
Boyan Slat’s story proves that "impossible" is often just a word used by those who give up too early. Our oceans need our assistance in righting at least some of the wrongs our human forbearers have committed. My gratitude to Boyan Slat is endless.
Steve Walker
Earthsaver and Jingles Creator