25-Year-Old Dutch Inventor Boyan Slat Creates Solar-Powered Barges That Will Help Clean Rivers

Back in 2011, 16-year old Boyan Slat went diving in Greece and noticed an incredible amount of plastic in the water. Seeing all of that waste inspired the man to start a journey towards making our planet cleaner and just two years later he started The Ocean Cleanup – a non-profit engineering environmental organization that develops technology to extract plastic from the oceans.

25-year-old Dutchman Boyan Slat has been on a journey towards making the planet cleaner since 2011

The Ocean Cleanup aims to develop a technology that would help successfully disassemble and clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The man has recently unveiled his latest invention – a solar-powered barge that will help rid rivers of plastic

After conducting research, Boyan found out that the 1,000 rivers around the world produce around 80% of the plastic waste that eventually ends up in the oceans.

Around 80 percent of the plastic that ends up in the oceans comes from rivers

The river cleaning barge is called the Interceptor and works by sucking river debris into huge dumpsters before bringing all of it to shore to be recycled.

The barge sucks river debris into huge dumpsters before bringing all of it to shore for recycling

A single barge can collect up to 110 tons of garbage that would normally end up in the oceans.

The idea behind the river cleaning barge is that it would stop plastic waste from reaching the oceans

Boyan hopes that by 2025, Interceptors will be deployed in all of the world’s most polluting rivers. Currently, The Ocean Cleanup is working on cleaning the Klang River in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the Cengkareng Drain in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Another project The Ocean Cleanup has been developing for the past few years is a floating system that would help clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

“Our team has remained steadfast in its determination to solve immense technical challenges to arrive at this point,” said the young inventor. “Though we still have much more work to do, I am eternally grateful for the team’s commitment and dedication to the mission and look forward to continuing to the next phase of development.”

The device uses ocean currents to collect the floating waste

If successful, the floating cleaning device could clean half of the garbage patch in as little as 5 years