If you close your eyes and squint a bit, you could pretend this 600-metre-long tube is some kind of giant ocean snake. It's not, though. It's a device with a very special mission – to catch the ocean's rubbish, or at least some of it.
It's being towed out to a part of the Pacific Ocean known as the Great Garbage Patch. The water currents here happen to make lots of plastic rubbish drift together, and I mean lots – an area almost the size of Queensland.
Until now, it's been too difficult, too big, and too expensive to do much about it. That was until this guy came along, Boyan Slat. This snake thing was his idea, and it all started when he was still at school.
'I realised, back in high school, there might be an alternative.'
For a school project, he designed a system of floating barriers that would be up to 100 kilometres long. They'd sit in the path of ocean currents, in a V-shape, to capture and funnel any floating plastic. Then these giant towers would suck it all up.
'Instead of going after the plastics, you could simply wait for the plastic to come to you.'
We've spent a lot of time telling you about plastic pollution on BTN.
'Yup, a recent study found that Aussies discard more than 9 billion pieces of plastic every year. Unlike paper or cardboard, plastic takes a really, really long time to break down.'
'I've come to realise that our precious marine life are getting killed by the so-called innocent plastic bag.'
But finding solutions hasn't been easy, and with so much plastic already in our oceans killing our marine life, Boyan and his organisation, Ocean Cleanup, are hopeful they can tackle the problem, one giant snake at a time.
'I mean, this is pretty incredible. I mean, something that we've been working towards for five years. And just having it seen from the early conceptual sketches to, you know, now the first unit actually going through the Golden Gate and heading to the Garbage Patch is pretty incredible.'
It's aiming to trap some of the 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic that scientists estimate are swirling around here, while still letting marine life safely swim beneath it. It's fitted with solar-powered lights, cameras, sensors and satellite antennas, and the design will make it easy for boats to fish out the collected plastic every few months and transport it to dry land where it will be recycled.
Boyan is now 24, and despite the years of work that have gone into this, he says the system will still get some more tweaks in the coming months.
The hope is to take it even further, by letting 60 of these giant snakes loose on the Pacific Ocean by 2020.
That's a lot of hungry snakes who surely won't be going hungry. But hopefully they do, at some point.
© ABC
Comments
Stop using or try to reduce the consumption of plastic in our day to day. Also make us really aware of the problem we generate by not taking care of our planet as we should.
What we can do to avoid plastic pollution is to buy less products packaged in plastics, avoid single use plastics such as straws for drinks and if you go shopping, do not forget to bring a bag of cloth.
I think that, to reduce the plastic in the world, is to reduce the use of plastic bottles, use more of the ecologic bags availeble at the supermarket and take the things that can be recycled to a special place.
An eazy way to help is recycling every single bottle, box of cereals and paper that we dont use
We can accommodate our garbage by throwing it in the deposits corresponding to recycling
What we can do to stop plastic pollution is to at least recycle plastic bottles and use ecological shopping bags so as not to waste plastic bags.
We should star to reuse plastics or send the plastics directly to a recycling center, or if its an option don't use plastics that will be thrown later.
I think this is a big problem because we going ti finish with the planet in a years and the bitaly of the water is the biggest thing and we are not only affecting humans we are affecting all the live species and thats not good. we need to be more concious of our acts.
Do not use plastic water bottles. We can buy stainless steel bottles that conserve water and are reusable.
Substitute the plastic straws for the metal ones. In this way you can use them several times and you will not pollute.
buy with reusable bags. Do not ask for plastic bags at the supermarket, take our bags from home and use them several times.
Avoid buying products wrapped in plastic. For example, legumes or fruits. You can take reusable cloth bags and transport everything there, this way you will not use single-use plastic bags.
In my opinion I think everybody should start with small details that can change a lot of your environment and can also make you a better version of yourself. In Mexico we must change as fast as possible before this covert to a serious problem.
A01199092
The way for we must stop using plastic, is star using another materials, like paper, glass, etc. A lot of the time when we use something that is plastic we use to throw it in whathever part, and if you start thinking when we drink a soda of glass we keep it or put on the trash can.
We must avoid the daily use of daily talks, we should also no longer buy many items with plastic in supermarkets, stop buying bottled water, it is also better that you cook at home and do not buy food outside because you will be using a lot of plastic; these measures are some but we must begin to relate these ideas so that in the future we do not have consequences.
(A01286347)
Try and stop using plastic products in our every day life while also trying to reuse any plastic ítems or tools that we do use, also clean up your trash and also the trash that you see to keep our areas clean. All of this has to be listened. So many good and innovative ideas are coming out, so, it will never be over till it starts again, and it will never be over if we ignore it.
Melissa's comment:
my ways of trying to keep the world a world without so much pollution is to reuse things that you can give them another utility as well as not spending so much water while taking a bath or brushing my right hand it is also good to separate garbage and organic garbage to compost it
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It is awesome how the people can think about the solution of the problem that is the pollution, in this case Boyan Slat create a really interesting machine that can take out the plastic of the ocean, I think if this ideas continue appearing the world is going to be a better place to live.
We can recycle the plastic that we dont use anymore, or we can change for another material that is not plastic. we can stop trowing plastics like bottles, bags, etc. in the streets because that would make more longer to they to decompose
We can stop using plastic bags in the supermarket and use fewer plastic bottles with the water, soda, detergents, or other things, because this objects that are the plastic bags and the plastic bottles when the people throw it to the trash, this trash could end up in the ocean and therefore contaminate the water and it can affect the marine animals.
I think that we can do is to change the materials of all plastic products we use , like bottles or bags. Or we can use rule of three R's
Mainly reduce the consumption of bottled products as this causes them to gradually accumulate and because plastic takes a long time to decompose it ends up in the ocean. It is also very useful to keep in mind that recycling, reusing and reducing can make a big difference to avoid damaging marine life as well as looking for a way to obtain ecological products.
We can substitute plastic elements for durable elements, such as straws for metal ones, plastic water bottles for metal bottles, take ecological bags to supermarkets, choose glass or cardboard containers, do not use disposable elements; and another thing we can do is use the three r's (reduce, recycle and reuse) to start a new process.
We can easily take with us our own reusable bags to go to the supermarket, try not to buy water bottles but to have a thermo and take with us our own cups, plates and cutlery when we buy food to go, so we don't have to use disposable ones.
Choose products that are packaged with cardboard or glass. For example, if we buy a drink, choose glass bottles or if we buy dishwasher detergent, choose a cardboard box.
Avoid disposable products. It is essential to avoid the use of single-use plastic plates, cutlery and glasses.
i think a good option is start using the 3 r’s principle, which are reduce, rehuse, and recycle. In my opinion, this three steps are something that enyone can do without any problem, so, it’ easier to keep them over time.
I think this can save the ocean because it is a very good idea and if they develop more of those we can expand it a lot but obviously that costs money I say that the better developed countries should pay for it to have to clean the ocean.
I think we should use more paper and cloth bags instead of plastic. We should also give used plastic bottles to recycling points or even use glass bottles.
We can do thousands of things to stop plastic pollution. Some of the simplest things we can do is stop using plastic bags, use our own thermos so that in this way we do not use single-use packages, have our own recyclable cutlery, do not use straws, and try to separate the plastic from other materials so that in this way it can be put to use.
Diana
The best form to stop plastic pollution is to think more about how we can affect the earth with plastic
pollution, and make the correct choice of putting the trash and things we don't need in the correct place, because
everyone right now can do whatever he or she wants with the trash and throw it away but in the future we are
going to live the consequences of this incorrect actions.
We all in the world need to think always about what we do, one of the first things, the triple R, Reuse, Recycle and Reduce, with that three we can help us and the marine life, because the plastic pollution involves a lot of things, another one is the global warming, that have been produced by mistakes of humans.
There are many things we can do, many of them are in our daily life, for example, we can stop using plastic bags in our shopping we can use reusable bags for our items. Also another option is stop using plastic or PET bottles. They contaminate a lot, they finish in the ocean and contaminating it. And a good solution for that is to use our thermos. Our goal is to reduce all the waste we have in our world, and have a better future.
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