This 21-year-old invented a way to clean up the massive Pacific garbage patch

boyan slat
Boyan Slat in Horta, Azores, Portugal The Ocean Cleanup

Boyan Slat is not your typical 21-year-old.

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At an age when most people are still trying to figure out what they're going to do with their lives, the Dutch innovator is the head of The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit that's raised millions of dollars to put into action a plan that Slat devised.

His goal is to help clean up the Pacific garbage gyre — an enormous area of the ocean where swirling currents cause plastic from around the world to converge in huge patches.

This plastic isn't just ugly. Animals like sea turtles, seals, and birds eat it, which poisons them. And as it breaks down into little particles called microplastics, the debris ends up in fish that often enter our own food supply.

Here's the story of why Slat thinks he has a plan that could clean up much of this floating trash, despite some serious questions from scientists. 

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Slat tells Tech Insider a diving trip he took when he was 16 years old inspired him to fight plastic in the ocean.

boyan slat ocean cleanup
Crew aboard S/Y Sea Dragon deploys the ‘Multi-Level Trawl’; a device aimed at measuring until what depth ocean plastic can be found. Boyan Slat can be seen holding one of the taglines. Allard Faas / The Ocean Cleanup

"I was diving in Greece, and I realized there were more plastic bags than fish, and I wondered why we couldn't clean it up," he says.

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Beatrice Murch/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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Back at school, Slat saw a presentation showing how currents take litter from all over the world and build it up in massive patches.

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Ocean currents in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

A phenomena caused by Earth's rotation, called the Coriolis force, accumulates the marine debris. It's also the same effect that drives spinning weather systems.

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Clouds spin over Iceland. NASA Aqua/MODIS
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And while gyres happen all over the world, the north Pacific gyre — between California and Hawaii — is by far the biggest concentration of garbage in Earth's waters.

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NOAA

Slat has visited the garbage patch several times. "It's a very strange experience to be four or five days from the closest point of land, and you see more plastic than life," he says.

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Mega Expedition support vessel Swiftsure deploying the fast surface trawl during departure from Hawaii. Drone Services Hawaii / The Ocean Cleanup
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Dipping a net in the water pulls up all kinds of plastic bits. "It's really quite a surreal sight."

Ocean Cleanup
‘Codends’ filled with plastic particles after trawling the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for one hour. Crew aboard ExtremeH20/The Ocean Cleanup

Slat questioned whether the same forces that gather floating debris could be used against the garbage: "I wondered, is it a problem, or could it also be a solution?"

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Boyan Slat in Horta, Azores, Portugal The Ocean Cleanup
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So he devised a giant system to play with the idea. It would take advantage of the ocean currents to passively collect floating plastic in a gyre...

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The Ocean Cleanup Array. Pictured is the center of the V, including the collection station, where the plastic can be gathered. Erwin Zwart / The Ocean Cleanup

...Instead of trying to accomplish the impossible task of actively hunting plastic trash.

the ocean cleanup
The Ocean Cleanup Array. Pictured is the center of the V, including the collection station, where the plastic can be gathered. Erwin Zwart / The Ocean Cleanup
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Slat worked on his concept as an engineering student at university, but eventually decided to drop out and focus on the project full time.

The Ocean Cleanup
The Ocean Cleanup conducts scale model experiments at research institute Deltares. Deltares

In 2012, Slat gave a TEDx talk that explained his plan to clean up the garbage patch in the north Pacific.

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The attention from the talk helped them raise enough money to start launching pilot projects. But the cleanup plan was met with serious skepticism.

The Ocean Cleanup
Boyan Slat inspecting a scale model setup insides the Flume of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. The Ocean Cleanup

Source: Inhabit

So Slat further developed the idea with engineers and oceanographers, and in February 2013, The Ocean Cleanup officially launched.

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Boyan Slat standing behind a pile of ocean plastic. The material was collected by volunteers in Hawaii, and has been used for recycling research. The Ocean Cleanup
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The basic idea is to attach a V-shaped system, composed of barriers (like the one below), to the sea floor.

The Ocean Cleanup
Crew inspects a 40 m-long proof-of-concept barrier. The Ocean Cleanup

"We let the plastic concentrate itself, creating a 65-mile artificial coastline, where plastic gets diverted to the center of these V-shaped barriers."

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Artist’s impression of what a still-to-come 2000 m-long Coastal Pilot will approximately look like in front of Tsushima Island, Japan Erwin Zwart / The Ocean Cleanup
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As currents push plastic toward the barriers, the V-shape directs them to the center, where a solar-powered system gobbles up the plastic.

The Ocean Cleanup
An artist's rendering of a test version of the system that they plan on deploying off the coast of Japan. Erwin Zwart / The Ocean Cleanup

The plan is ambitious, so The Ocean Cleanup is running multiple tests. For example, they attached a 40-meter-long barrier to a bridge Rotterdam, then deployed it in a river to study how it impacted the local ecosystem.

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Volunteers are using a plankton net to find out whether there is an increase in zooplankton concentration in front of the barrier. The Ocean Cleanup
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Some experts called the plan unrealistic, unworkable, and a distraction from efforts to stop people from letting plastic loose in the oceans in the first place.

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Steven Guerrisi/Flickr

Source: Inhabit

But The Ocean Cleanup raised enough money to deploy a "proof-of-concept" barrier off the coast of Portugal in 2014.

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A proof-of-concept barrier is being towed into position. The Ocean Cleanup
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Using that concept and the help of more than 100 volunteers, scientists, and their own nonprofit staff, they published an in-depth feasibility study that they say shows the project could work.

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The Ocean Cleanup Array. Pictured is the center of the V, including the collection station. Erwin Zwart / The Ocean Cleanup

Source: The Ocean Cleanup

They say their research showed that most sea life — even plankton, which oceanographers are concerned about — could slip under the barriers.

The Ocean Cleanup
The Ocean Cleanup Array. Pictured is a mooring point (with three lines going to the seabed). Erwin Zwart / The Ocean Cleanup
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What's more, The Ocean Cleanup says its system could remove almost half of the garbage from the Pacific gyre in 10 years.

The Ocean Cleanup
Multi-Level Trawl measuring until what depth ocean plastic can be found. The Ocean Cleanup

Recycling the plastic they pull out will help them keep costs down.

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Erwin Zwart / The Ocean Cleanup
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But some researchers still have questions. "Being a naysayer is neither fun nor professionally rewarding," write marine researchers Kim Martini and Miriam Goldstein at Deep Sea News.

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NOAA

Source: Deep Sea News

Even though Martini and Goldstein think The Ocean Cleanup means well, and "we commend them for taking our past critiques seriously," the researchers maintain a list of problems with the study and its findings.

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NOAA
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Martini and Goldstein say there are structural issues, for example, that aren't adequately addressed.

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MKnighton/Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing / Handout

They also think the feasibility study itself admits problems with unwanted trapping of important species of sea life.

The Ocean Cleanup
The Ocean Cleanup Array. Pictured is the center of the V, including the collection station. Erwin Zwart / The Ocean Cleanup
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And they're concerned The Ocean Cleanup didn't properly calculate ocean forces, which they say might tear the structure apart — unleashing even more debris into the open ocean.

The Ocean Cleanup
Underwater photo of deployed ‘manta trawl’ by Mega Expedition volunteer vessel Between The Sheets. Crew aboard Between The Sheets/The Ocean Cleanup

Marine biologist Andrew Thaler writes at his blog Southern Fried Science that The Ocean Cleanup's project needs a formal environmental assessment.

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NOAA

Source: Southern Fried Science

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It would be one of the largest offshore structures ever assembled, so it could transform migration patterns for important species that would be drawn to it.

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NOAA spokeswoman Asma Mahdi told the Guardian that they are still concerned about the costs and effectiveness of projects like this.

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Solar power helps run the collection part of the array. Erwin Zwart / The Ocean Cleanup

Source: The Guardian

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Slat doesn't discount his critics. He says more tests are needed before the project is launched in 2020, but he thinks they've shown the project is workable.

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‘Codends’ filled with plastic particles after trawling the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for one hour. Crew aboard ExtremeH20/The Ocean Cleanup

Slat and The Ocean Cleanup certainly aren't letting its critics slow them down.

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gtall1/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
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In September of 2015, The Ocean Cleanup finished what they call the "Mega Expedition," sending almost 30 boats out to scout the garbage gyre.

The Ocean Cleanup
Simplified map showing 50 transects between Hawaii and California, illustrating the scale of the Mega Expedition research area (3.5 million km2). Erwin Zwart / The Ocean Cleanup

Plastic-capturing devices they deployed found more garbage than they expected — but it was mostly near the surface, indicating their system could easily capture it.

The Ocean Cleanup
Collection of ‘manta trawls’ which are being deployed by all Mega Expedition vessels to study the spatial distribution of plastic. Stella Diamant / The Ocean Cleanup
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"The size of the debris was quite surprising," he says. "We're still processing the data but ... the big particles outweighed the small ones by 100 to 1."

The Ocean Cleanup
Mega Expedition crew members Mario Merkus and Serena Cunsolo on mothership R/V Ocean Starr with the results of trawling with one 6 meter-wide net for one hour. The Ocean Cleanup

"We had this shipping container on the mothership," says Slat. "They expected there to be plenty of room for a month of plastic collecting, but it was full after 4 days."

The Ocean Cleanup
Mega Expedition Mothership R/V Ocean Starr leaving San Francisco, heading to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Lys-Anne Sirks / The Ocean Cleanup
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Yet even if The Ocean Cleanup's idea works, it can't clean everything. There are bits of plastic too small to capture, and many are deeper than the array can reach.

The Ocean Cleanup
Boyan Slat and Julia Reisser, lead oceanographer, examining samples of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Kyler Badten

Since large plastic chunks outweigh smaller ones, says Slat, there's even more of a pressing need to do the cleanup: It could prevent that plastic from breaking down.

The Ocean Cleanup
Mega Expedition mothership R/V Ocean Starr deploying the two 6 meter-wide ‘mega nets’, two ‘manta trawls’, and its survey balloon with camera at the center of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Skyframes / The Ocean Cleanup
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Still, every day, more and more plastic flows from land into the sea.

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Discarded toys are seen amongst trash, on a beach near the high-income Costa del Este neighborhood in Panama City September 10, 2013. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

The Ocean Cleanup contends that even if its array can't stop plastic from getting into the water, it could be part of a larger movement to stop littering on land and capture rubbish at river mouths.

The Ocean Cleanup
The end of the Mega Expedition. Olaf Lemmers / The Ocean Cleanup
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Next year, the organization plans to test an array off the coast of Japan. It will be a smaller version of the main one, which they hope to deploy in 2020.

The Ocean Cleanup
Artist’s impression of the 2000 m-long Coastal Pilot will approximately look like in front of Tsushima Island, Japan. Erwin Zwart / The Ocean Cleanup

One other planned test will see if the moorings can hold the structure together in deep water — the 2020 array needs to be moored almost 4,000 meters deep.

The Ocean Cleanup
The Ocean Cleanup volunteers deploy on of the Mega Expedition’s ‘manta trawls’ as a test on the North Sea. The Ocean Cleanup
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The Ocean Cleanup has raised more than half of their 30 million Euro budget through crowdfunding and sponsors. They hope the unexpected plastic they found on the "mega expedition" will drive down costs, since they say it can be recycled.

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Boyan Slat announcing the Coastal Pilot at Seoul Digital Forum 2015. The Ocean Cleanup

Slat attributes the fact that they've gotten this far to public support and to his team.

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Speech by Dr. Julia Reisser, The Ocean Cleanup’s lead oceanographer, about her encounters with Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Ottilie Cools
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"You need a group of people who will continually realize that you will run into problems, and for each you will have hundreds or thousands of ways you can approach it," he says.

The Ocean Cleanup
Crew aboard Mega Expedition volunteer vessel ExtremeH20 check the contents of the ‘codends’ after trawling the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Crew aboard ExtremeH20

Many of those ways will fail, but "you only need one of those ways to make it work," Slat says.

The Ocean Cleanup
Boyan Slat working from his bedroom, before The Ocean Cleanup had an office. The Ocean Cleanup
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