Young Inventor Finds A Solution For Ocean Garbage Patches
Posted by Michelle Moquin on June 30th, 2016
Good Morning!
I love when I discover someone who is doing something wonderful for the environment. As I’ve said before, we count on our environment to sustain our lives. If we don’t take care if it, we will for sure perish, and so will the plant and animal life, but Earth will continue to live on in whatever manner it is left in.
I so want us to take care of our Mother Earth so that we and all of the other life can continue to live and prosper on this beautiful rock that we reside on.
A write from ThinkProgress:
This 21-Year-Old May Have Found The Way To Clean Up The Plastic In Our Oceans
Boyan Slat wants to start the largest ocean clean up ever with the help of nets and ocean currents. He began testing his prototype this month.
Boyan Slat was just 16 when he realized he wanted to rid the oceans of plastic. It all happened after he dove into the problem in the most literal way while snorkeling in Greece and finding more drifting plastic than fish swimming.
“I thought, that’s a real problem. How can we come up with a solution for that?” Slat recalled during an interview with ThinkProgress.
Indeed, the problem is real and large. Around eight million metric tons of plastic waste enter the oceans every year, according to a 2015 study. In addition, recent research found so-called garbage patches in every major ocean. Plastic is so pervasive that it’s been found in sea ice, and also inside 50 percent of all species of seabirds, 66 percent of all species of marine mammals, and all species of sea turtles.
Once back in his native Netherlands, Slat delved into the topic as people told him that cleaning up the ocean was impossible. Still, Slat, a young inventor who by then already held the world record for most high-pressure rockets simultaneously launched, persisted until he found what he was looking for.
“I saw this animation where they used computer models to show that plastic actually moves” through ocean currents, Slat, now 21, said. “And then I thought, why should you move through the ocean if the ocean can move through you.”
Slat, chief executive officer of The Ocean Clean Up, has taken his eureka moment and turned it into a collection system based on floating barriers attached to the sea bed that use the ocean’s energy to gather plastic waste. After obtaining over $2 million through crowdfunding and more from Dutch government financing, Slat unveiled the first prototype last week in the North Sea, just off the coast of Netherlands.
Less than a mile in length, this prototype is but 10 percent the size of the actual system Slat wants to build to conduct what he describes as “the largest clean-up in history” on a large mass of marine debris floating in the Pacific Ocean called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The prototype will be in the North Sea for a year as the foundation tests if the system can withstand corrosion, storms, and more in the open sea.
“The question that we are trying to answer with this prototype is: can we build a floating barrier which is able to survive at sea for years,” said Slat. In the next twelve months, sensors will track the prototype’s every move and gather data to inform the development of the larger system. The North Sea’s minor storms are actually worse than the most powerful storms in the Pacific Ocean, Slat said. “It’s pretty safe to say that if it survives here it will survive anywhere, and certainly in the [area] of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch where we intend to deploy it.”
The Ocean Cleanup’s cleaning technology uses long floating barriers creating a v-shaped artificial coastline that catches ocean debris in its center. There, a solar-powered hydraulic pump and conveyor system scoop up waste that boats then collect and take to landfills or recycling centers. This suggests a massive logistical effort depending on how far from shore the system is placed, and the sorting of trash or other bycatch that would follow. Right now however, testing the floating barriers is crucial, so for the next year, they are focusing solely on the barrier. Therefore, plastic collection is unlikely. But “if that goes well we should be ready to deploy the first operational pilot system late next year, and that should put us on track to start the largest clean up in history by 2020,” Slat said.
Slat’s plan has received some criticism, however. One worry is that the barriers will cause too much bycatch — where marine life gets accidentally caught and dies, normally in fishing nets — though the foundation’s preliminary impact statement study found a low risk of that happening. “There shouldn’t be any impact because the barrier is 1.5 meters deep (roughly 4 feet),” Slat said. “It’s really small when compared to the Pacific Ocean, and the current flows underneath it.” Still, he said this test is part of making sure the system is safe. “We are not only testing the technology,” Slat said.
Chelsea M. Rochman, a marine ecologist at the University of Toronto who’s studied the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, welcomed the clean up plan, though she favors preventing plastic from reaching the sea in the first place. “I personally think that preventing it before it goes into the ocean … is better than placing something that large in the middle of the ocean where it’s very hard to monitor,” she said. “Putting things like what he’s doing at the mouth of a river may also be more effective.”
One example of a comparable system placed in a river is Baltimore’s inner harbor water wheel, also known as Mr. Trash Wheel. This device uses the Jones Falls River current to turn a water wheel which picks up debris into a dumpster barge. When the current is weak, a solar panel is in place to provide the necessary power. Since 2014, the cartoon-looking Mr. Trash Wheel has collected 420 tons of trash, including hundreds of thousands of plastic bottles, polystyrene containers, plastic bags, and million of cigarette butts, according to the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore.
The Inner Harbor Water Wheel, or “Mr. Trash Wheel” to locals, combines old and new technology to harness the power of water and sunlight to collect litter and debris flowing down the Jones Falls River.
But whether the plastic collection happens in rivers or oceans, Rochman said solving ubiquitous plastic pollution requires “people like Boyan, who are doing it on their own.” At the same time, she said, more top-down solution like the federal ban on microbeads approved in December or plastic bag bans need to happen. Furthermore, developed countries have to help emerging countries in creating better waste management, she said, since emerging nations are increasingly contributing to plastic pollution. In fact, more than half of all plastic reaching the oceans comes from China, Indonesia, the Philipines, Thailand, and Vietnam, according to the Ocean Conservancy.
“I don’t think there is one solution to plastic debris, I really don’t,” said Rochman. “I think it’s like hundreds of little things and the more that we have that are out there and that are highlighted, I think the greater chance that we have.”
*****
Readers: This is so cool. This young man, Slat, has come up with a wonderful idea, and it seems like it is going to work. So I’m excited that in spite of people telling him it was impossible, he held his vision and persisted. As much as I agree with Chelsea M. Rochman, we need to prevent plastic from reaching the sea in the first place, the fact is right now, we have seas full of plastic, and something needed to happen to rid our oceans of the debris that is harming the wildlife.
The fact that Slat, got two million in crowdfunding just tells you how many people are concerned about our oceans and want to do something about it. It took Slat’s epiphany and vision to see it through. I applaud him. I’m excited to see this come to fruition. The fact that plastic has been found in sea ice, and also inside 50 percent of all species of seabirds, 66 percent of all species of marine mammals, and all species of sea turtles, is just heartbreaking. I can’t imagine that his invention would leave the sea life in a worse state than they are now. Let’s hope that it’s safe for our underwater friends, and this year of testing will confirm that.
Thoughts?
Blog me.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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June 30th, 2016 at 2:29 pm
Daddy, why did republicans nominate donald trump?
Because they’re so pissed off at Obama’s successful scandal-free presidency that it drove them crazy, son.
July 1st, 2016 at 6:33 am
Bridget it may be because donald trump promises the racist part of white america he will bring back the days when white men controlled the country to the detriment of the rest of its citizens.
July 1st, 2016 at 6:40 am
Bridget this is what Limbaugh said would happen if trump or any democrat wins.
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“My sense is that there isn’t going to be any peace. There’s going to be anger. There is going to be rage,” he said. “And it’s not just because it’s Trump. Trump will be icing on the cake. It could be anybody. If Hillary Clinton loses. If the left, if the Democrats lose, it won’t matter so much who wins. It’s just the fact that they lost, they’re not going to tolerate it.”
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The reason he said that is because he knows that is exactly what happened when a black man, Obama won the White House. It continued for his entire term. The republican legislators have been nothing but obstructionists and the republican people have raged at Obama with a vitriol never before seen towards a sitting POTUS.
July 1st, 2016 at 6:45 am
Martha, men think they’ve got the monopoly on the concept of ‘ying by ommission to have peace at home, they’ll see in November that we are quite capable of doing the same, again Hilary, to me, as POTUS is the forgone conclusion.
Salazar, when I hear women or any minority speak of supporting trump I wonder if either A. They’re nucking futs or B. They’re just giving fake lip service to go along w spouse/friends/etc bc it’s not sane reasoning to be on that bandwagon, then again it’s not sane reasoning that he got this far to begin with…sane minds would’ve given him a large boot up his arse after his silly stump speech last year.
Luv this article and I Luv how his original thought led to action, watching action takers is a pet passion bc we can all say ‘ we should do this n that’ but until someone acts on it … It’s just a good idea. Good for him and for us!
Luv, Zen Lill
July 1st, 2016 at 6:45 am
‘Lying by omission’ **
July 1st, 2016 at 6:53 am
Bridget#1, Hopefully Trump never becomes president. He gives legitimacy to the racist and other scumbags of the earth to hate on their fellow human beings much like the way many in the UK from the Leave camp has been doing with their racist remarks and acts. It is the right who will be inciting violence.
July 1st, 2016 at 6:55 am
Let’s hope the racist old white men will die off before they can infect too many more of our young with their hatred.
July 1st, 2016 at 7:07 am
Sometimes the narcissism of white men and the preoccupation with expecting that what they as a race tried to to do to the OTWs will happen to them breeds the most incredibly stupid shit.
This is what many members of my family here in Tennessee are spreading around and beliving.
================
This is a war unlike any other war in history. It is taking place silently and surreptitiously under the very noses of its victims. Roughly 95-99 per cent of the victims of this war, scattered over several continents in the traditional White homelands of the European people, remain blissfully unaware that they are about to be dispossessed and genocided. Some of them, like lambs being led to the slaughterhouse, have now begun to bleat and give signs of incipient alarm. In the videos below, you will hear the first sounds of this unhappy bleating .
Video 1 : Facing the Facts (7.35 mins.)
Video 2 : Diagnosis of the Disease (3.50 mins)
(This controversial video could soon be banned)
Video 3 : Who is to blame? (0. 37 mins.)
====================
My idiotic relatives are calling each other and raving about what “they have discovered a conspiracy to kill off all white people.
Oh, and the money these people ask you to contribute so they can save the white race from the coming genocide must be hugh considering the amounts my stupid relatives have and are giving.
July 1st, 2016 at 7:10 am
Timothy#3, Rush …. The giant GOP cancer that has grown out of the 1987 removal of the fairness doctrine in broadcasting… Has now metastasized into an inoperable tumor. Demagoguery has never done as much damage to the body politic as this fat lying hypocrite has caused.
July 1st, 2016 at 7:12 am
Timothy#3, The big fat pot calling the kettle black. The same verbage could have described the Rights reaction to our first black President, and it did.
July 1st, 2016 at 7:15 am
I agree with both of your points Zen Lill. I check this blog every day to see what your take is on the topics. We have like minds, except you can express what I am thinking in words that I never imagined.
thanks.
July 1st, 2016 at 7:36 am
On the contrary to you lefties squealing about what Mr. Limbaugh said. He makes sense to me. The lefties throw food at right wing presenters on college campusus. They attack Trump supporters and try to shut down free speech before the election. Seems reasonable to assume it would continue after the election.
July 1st, 2016 at 7:45 am
Steve#12, I hear Chrispy Creme, and Newt the snake oil salesman is being considered for VP. Either one will be a good match for this idiot.
July 1st, 2016 at 7:47 am
Lia#13, I look over your negative slurs because you are a woman. Most aren’t fit to judge men in politics. As for Christie and Gingrich being vetted for VP?
They’re both smart men — Gingrich the wiser, more experienced and more knowledgeable of the two. Yet Gingrich appeared to double cross Trump with his launch of the seemingly-planned GOP “Mexican judge” false accusation. Don’t know if he and Trump came to terms on that, but it was an oddly pro-Establishment attack.
July 1st, 2016 at 7:54 am
On trumps choice of VP, give him a few minutes, he’ll change his mind. Or whatever he calls his mind. Personally I think his mind is what he sits on. But that’s just my opinion.
July 1st, 2016 at 7:56 am
On the SCOTUS abortion decision, I think the world in general and SCOTUS in particular, realize that stringent opposition to women’s legal rights for religious reasons isn’t going to be the future in this country.
July 1st, 2016 at 7:58 am
Trump is one scary guy. He has absolutely no idea about much of anything…except, of course, the wonderfulness of himself.
July 1st, 2016 at 7:59 am
Most of the right live in a pocket universe where truth is a conspiracy and science is a distraction.
July 1st, 2016 at 8:19 am
Newt for vp is a perfect choice, that’ll nail the coffin on that pseudo run fr POTUS fr trump.
And Steve so your opinion means more bc you’re a man and even further you’re a ‘superior’ man judging the political opinions and intellect of women, uh … Hmmm, I think you know my response to that so I won’t say it. Please…strike yourself at home in private, thanks.
Susie, thank you for that comment, I’m glad you’re in alignment with some if my opinions.
~ ZL
July 1st, 2016 at 8:20 am
Stroke** yourself
July 2nd, 2016 at 9:02 am
[…] Lia: I don’t laugh as much as I’d like to about anything these days. Sometimes I think I’ve lost my sense of humor, which is not something I want to lose. So when something strikes my funny bone, like you just did, I’m so grateful I still have it. Laughing out loud. Thank you for showing me I still got it. […]
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