Boyan Slat is a very popular and young engineer. He is the one who started the organization which has recently successfully managed to collect trash from almost 2 shipping containers from the Garbage Patch of the Great Pacific. Such an initiative has never been taken in the history of the world.
Boyan Slat has now taken his next step whereby he has set his eyes on the exact source for the majority of the water pollution. Being a Dutch conservationist, he intends to solve the problem from its very origin.
In addition, he has already deployed the clean-up vessels along the important ocean current path. This has allowed large quantities of plastic waste to get accumulated in the device. After that, they are pulled up and finally moved ashore for recycling. Slat has also informed that they are presently capturing microplastics that are as small as 1 millimeter in size.
Along with this drive to clean the oceans, Boyan Slat has also decided to tackle another related issue. Furthermore, this problem is as important to the entire plastic pollution issue as ocean clean-up. Slat has organized the drive to clean the littered rivers all over the world.
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River Clean-Up Initiative By Boyan Slat
The Ocean Clean-up is the organization that conducted the drive to clean the Pacific Patch. Boyan Slat is the CEO of the company. Recently, under his leadership, they have laid down extensive plans to reduce river pollution.
Interceptor 002 at work in Klang, Malaysia. Was amazing to see it in reality! pic.twitter.com/7xXoYojgzX
— Boyan Slat (@BoyanSlat) November 5, 2019
They have decided to target the rivers mainly after the reports of the research that discovered that one thousand rivers across the world are the cause of 80% deposit of the entire trash. As a result, in order to capture the garbage accumulating in the water bodies, river pollution must be controlled.
Slat and his organization believe that turning the taps off and capturing the plastic flowing down the river course is a more challenging task as compared to ocean clean-ups. Moreover, this will also decrease the accumulation of trash in the oceans.
The Innovative Interceptor
In order to assist their clean-up on larger scales, Boyan Slat has recently created The Interceptor. It is an efficient barge that is fully solar-powered. This device will gobble up most of the plastic garbage of the rivers.
The Interceptor gathers trash through an extendable barrier that is water-permeable and placed at the halfway mark of the river stream. The conveyor belt in front of this device scoops out the plastic from the water and drops it on a shuttle. This shuttle carries across the barge and drops the trash in 1 of the 6 dumpsters that eventually carries it onshore.
If The Interceptor is working to its full capacity, it can extract almost 220,000 pounds of trash each day. Several Interceptors together will be able to extract enough amount of garbage to keep the oceans relatively cleaner.
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Thinking About The Future
Credits The Ocean Cleanup
The main objective of Boyan Slat is to place The Interceptors at all the 1,000 rivers that contribute the largest quantity of trash within 2025. This device is accessible and can be easily manufactured. This makes it easier for other poorer nations to access it and reduce the pollution in places with the worst waste disposal mechanisms. Moreover, these poor countries are far more affected by plastic waste pollution than any other Western countries.
The Ocean Clean-up, at present, has placed Interceptors in Kuala Lumpur’s Klang River and Jakarta’s Cengkareng Drain which are considered among the fifty worst polluted rivers worldwide. Slat’s organization is also willing to offer help to local governments to implement the device in their territorial rivers. His goal is to prevent the trash from the rivers to reach the oceans.
Image Featured Boyan Slat
