Project Aims to End the Sea of ​​Plastic Trash in the Pacific

Conceived about 5 years ago, the biggest project to clean up the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch (a kind of giant island in the middle of the ocean formed by tons of plastic garbage and 16 times the area of ​​Portugal) began to be implemented last September 8th.

If the idea works, it is believed that by 2040, this dump, a real shame for humanity, will have been eliminated.

At the awesome.club we explain what this new project consists of and present the fantastic story of its creator.

The initiative was born from the idea of ​​a young Dutchman, son of Croatian immigrants called Boyan Slat.When he was 16, Boyan was vacationing in Greece. and decided to take the plunge. But he got a surprise when, instead of fish, found a pile of plastic floating in the sea. This disturbed the young man so much that he started thinking about how he could help the Planet by collecting plastic.

That’s how, in 2013, he came up with the ingenious idea of ​​The Ocean Cleanup project. At that time, Boyan was only 18 years old and, to dedicate all your time to your inspiring idea, the young man left his studies at the Technical University of Delft, where he studied aerospace engineering.

After 5 years working on the project and thanks to money obtained basically through donations (20 million dollars), at the beginning of the month, the project started.

Boyan’s idea consists of a large floating barrier placed on the coast of San Francisco (USA), responsible for collecting 5 tons of garbage every month. The device called Wilson (same nickname as the ball in the movie shipwrecked) will move across the Pacific Ocean thanks to ocean currents and wind (that is, it will not be moved all the time by boats, which would have an environmental impact) and will collect plastic waste larger than 1 centimeter in diameter along the way. O The goal, as has been said, is to make the plastic continent disappear by 2040.

The plastic gathered thanks to the giant collector will be collected every 6 weeks by a boat, which will take it to the destination, where it will be recycled to create various products.

We hope this initiative will inspire many more projects to clean up our oceans. But, remember, no initiative will help change the situation if we don’t change the way we treat the Planet. If we all start putting our grain of sand and stop throwing garbage anywhere, very soon we will see positive changes in our surroundings.

What did you think of this project? Do you think Boyan’s idea works?

Tell us in the comments!