Courage, tenacity and a visionary idea: why we at bluetelligence support the Ocean Cleanup Project
Plastic waste in the world’s oceans is a huge problem. With his Ocean Cleanup Project, the young Dutchman Boyan Slat has set himself the task of actively tackling this problem. We are impressed by his determination and innovative strength and have been supporting the project since last year. So it’s high time we told you about it.
Five trillion pieces of plastic are currently floating in the ocean. However this figure can be quantified, it sounds frightening. In the long term, the pieces of plastic break down into microplastics and cause fatal damage to our ecosystem. In addition to marine life, humans are also affected along the food chain.
The question remains as to what to do about it. Collecting and transporting each piece individually would be neither affordable nor time-consuming. For many, however, simply giving up on the oceans is – fortunately – not an option.
Dutchman Boyan Slat has decided not to give in helplessly and take action instead. He made this decision at the age of just 17. Two years later, in 2013, he founded the Ocean Cleanup Project. With a team of up to 100 researchers and engineers, he has continued to tinker and develop an ingenious system.
The targeted technology is essentially based on plastic tubes arranged in a U-shape. Held to the seabed by weights, these tubes float on the sea surface and bundle the waste in the middle with the help of natural ocean currents, where it can be skimmed off after a while. The sea collects its own waste, so to speak.
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More InformationAfter the first prototype was successfully deployed, the first major marine clean-up mission with “System 001” – affectionately known as “Wilson” – was launched in 2018. It began with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between Hawaii and California, the largest of the five large plastic waste fields. It is estimated to be 1.6 million square kilometers in size. The goal: to eliminate 50 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in just five years. To this end, continuous improvements have been made to the system since the start of the mission in order to make it more effective.
When we at bluetelligence first heard about the Ocean Cleanup Project, we were impressed by Boyan Slat’s tenacity, his passion and not least his visionary solution. It was therefore an easy decision to donate €5,000 to the Ocean Cleanup Project in spring 2018. Since then, we have also continued to support the project with €10 per employee per month.
Boyan Slat acts sustainably and wants to leave the world better than he found it. We at bluetelligence can identify with this. Long-term, resource-saving solutions and persistence in implementing visions are also important to us in product development. In addition, just like the well-known African proverb, we believe that many small people in many small places doing many small things can change the face of the world. This starts, for example, with the switch to glass bottles in the office kitchen and continues with electric company cars and donations to great projects like this one. Of course, we continue to be inspired in this respect and hope to inspire others to contribute to the preservation of our environment.
If you would also like to donate, you can do so directly on the Ocean Cleanup Project website. Please contact us if you have any questions.