Ocean Clean Up Machine – Summary and reader-response (Final)

Ocean Clean Up Machine – Summary and Reader-response- Final Draft

(Edited on 01 April 2020)

(Feedback by Professor Brad on 01 March 2020)

In the article, “Boy Genius Boyan Slat’s Giant Ocean Clean-up Machine Is Real”, Schiller (2017) has reported how Boyan Slat’s improved “Ocean Clean-up” system targets to collect half a trillion tons of plastic waste in the “Pacific Garbage Patch” within the next half a decade. 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 replaced the fixed seabed floater with a deep-water skirts system which was 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 and the ocean movements while working on his machine design. Schiller was convinced by Slat's design that the drag generated by the skirts, propelled automatically by oceanic forces, would 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.

While Schiller’s article focused on Slat’s ocean clean up machine and its operation, it failed to discuss that there are two sides of the 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. These are bulk of plastic waste that drifted miles from the mainland over a period.

Schiller could have obtained more information to share that the main information source of plastic pollution in the ocean is the rivers. According to the Ocean Clean-up website, Slat and his team have already discovered 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”. A YouTube video (TomoNews US, 2017) has shared worrying information that the largest contributor to plastic waste comes from rivers in (five?) Asian countries. 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 are not well contained and end up into rivers and flow out to the ocean when the seawater tide changes.

There are other interesting details that Schiller failed to cover in his 2017 article on Slat’s plans for addressing/responding to the river plastic pollution. Surprisingly, Slat and his team have already planned in 2016 to stop plastic flowing out from the rivers, which he called “close the tap”. Slat has invented a prototype river clean up-machine called "The Interceptor" to address river pollution. He has even successfully engaged the Indonesian government to implement his 1st major river clean-up project.

Schiller could possibly strike readers' interest more if he provided adequate information on the whole river to ocean plastic waste problem in his article. The article would be very useful to spread awareness that plastic waste problems in the sea are mainly because of humans’ activities upstream at the rivers. The whole world should be grateful to Slat and his team as they planned not to only remove plastics from the ocean but also to tackle them right from the river source before entering the ocean. Schiller could have given further credit 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.


References

Schiller, B. (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/