Ocean Clean Up Machine – Summary and Reader-response Draft 2 (Edited on 14th February 2020)
Ocean Clean Up Machine – Summary and Reader-response Draft 2 (Edited on 14th February 2020)
Boyan Slat has stepped up to introduce his prototype design of an ocean clean-up machine. Unfortunately, Slat’s design of a floater system anchored to deep seabed has sustainability issues that have an impact to cost and time for the whole ocean clean-up operation. Slat discovered a technological solution that replaces the fixed seabed floater with a deep-water skirts system and ready to be deployed in 2018. Schiller has shared that Slat’s company, “The Ocean Clean-up Foundation”, has gained trust and confidence over the past six years. Slat now has a pool of motivated working teams carrying out detailed studies on plastic waste, the ocean movements and working on his machine design. Schiller was convinced by Slat's design that the drag generated by the skirts, propelled automatically by oceanic forces, will produce significant success in cleaning up to half of the great pacific garbage patch in a shorter time with a reasonably low required cost. Slat aims to recycle the plastic waste collected and to receive sponsorships.
There are 2 sides of plastic pollution problems. On one side, there is the great pacific garbage patch; the floating plastic legacy issue that does not go away by itself. With Slat’s ideas, finally, the ocean clean-up operations are being initiated. And on the other side is plastic waste still entering the ocean. It could be the bulk of plastic waste that was just disposed by passing ships or probably even plastic waste that drifted miles from the mainland over a period of time.
According to the ocean cleanup website, Slat and his team have already conducted research that “Rivers are the main source of ocean plastic pollution”. It is very alarming when their research found that “1000 rivers are responsible for roughly 80% of the pollution”. Much of the plastic pollution stemmed from an underdeveloped waste management system. Humans are responsible for the waste that is just dropped as litter into the rivers or disposed of overtime as landfills along riverbanks. These wastes were not well contained and ended up into rivers and flow out to the ocean when the seawater tide changes. A YouTube video (TomoNews US, 2017) has shared worrying information that the large contributor to plastic waste comes from rivers in Asian countries. Schiller’s article could have extended his write up to provide awareness on these plastic waste problems which mainly caused by human negligence and behaviour.
Surprisingly, Slat and his ocean clean-up team have discovered the river pollution problems way ahead in 2016. In fact, Slat and his team have already planned in 2016, to stop plastic flowing out from the rivers which he called it “close the tap”. Slat has also invented a prototype river clean up-machine called "The Interceptor". He has even successfully engaged the Indonesian government to propose his 1st major river clean-up project. These interesting details are way before the ocean clean-up operations in 2018 which Schiller did not cover in his 2017 article.
If Schiller has put in the slight effort to interview Slat further, Schiller could obtain more information to strike readers' interest on his article to spare some thoughts on the whole river to ocean plastic waste problem. Schiller could have given further credits to Slat and his ocean clean-up team who has been working beyond their goals in developing effective plans and new technologies for the fastest possible reduction in the amount of plastic waste. Slat's plans do not only remove plastics from the ocean but also to tackle them right from the river source before entering the ocean.
References
Schiller (2017). Boy Genius Boyan Slat’s Giant Ocean Cleanup Machine Is Real.
https://www.fastcompany.com/40419899/boy-genius-boyan-slats-giant-ocean-cleanup-machine-is-real
TomoNews US (2017, September 2017). Ocean Pollution: 60% of plastic waste in the oceans comes from just five Asian countries. [Video]. Youtube.
https://youtu.be/UynITtG7HLE
The Ocean Clean-up/Rivers (2016). The Ocean Clean-up
https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/
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