The Dutch boy mopping up a sea of plastic By Vibeke Venema

Boyan Slat is a 20-year-old on a mission - to rid the world's oceans of floating plastic. He has dedicated his teenage years to finding a way of collecting it. But can the system really work - and is there any point when so much new plastic waste is still flowing into the sea every day?

In one sentence, write what the article is about This article is about ______________________ _______________________________________

This idea came to him at the age of 16, in the summer of 2011, when diving in Greece. "I saw more plastic bags than fish," says Slat. He was shocked, and even more shocked that there seemed to be no solution. "Everyone said to me: 'Oh there's nothing you can do about plastic once it gets into the oceans,' and I wondered whether that was true."

Over the last 30 to 40 years, millions of tonnes of plastic have entered the oceans. The world produces 288 million tonnes per year. In time, 10% ends up in the ocean. Litter gets swept into drains, and ends up in rivers - so that plastic straw or cup lid you dropped, or that plastic bottle you threw on the road… they could all end up in the sea.

Two facts … Fact #1: ____________________________ ____________________________ Fact #2: ____________________________ ____________________________

The plastic is carried by currents and ends up in 5 revolving water systems, called gyres, in the major oceans. The biggest gyre is called the Pacific Garbage Patch.

What does the map show? The map shows __________________________ _______________________________________ The red mark represents ___________________ _______________________________________

Although the concentration of plastic in these areas is high - it's sometimes described as a plastic soup - it's still spread out over an area twice the size of Texas. What's more, the plastic does not stay in one spot, it rotates. These factors make a clean-up incredibly challenging.

Texas is over 8 times bigger than the UAE. Texas = 695,621 sq km UAE = 83,600 sq km

The garbage stretches for millions of square kilometres The garbage stretches for millions of square kilometres. If you went there to try and clean up by ship it would take thousands of years. Not only that, it would be very costly in terms of both money and energy, and fish would be accidentally caught in the nets.

Slat had always enjoyed working out solutions to puzzles, and while pondering this one, it came to him - rather than chase plastic, why not harness the currents and wait for it to come to you? ponder harness

Vocabulary Ponder: ________________________________ ________________________________ Harness: _______________________________ ________________________________

Slat thought of a way to bring the garbage together Slat thought of a way to bring the garbage together. He designed floating barriers attached to the bottom of the sea. These barriers would first catch and concentrate the floating debris. The plastic would move along the barriers towards a platform, where it could then be collected and removed from the sea.

The ocean current would pass underneath the barriers, taking all the sea life with it. There would be no emissions, and no nets for marine life to get entangled in. The collected ocean plastic would be recycled and made into products - or oil.

The garbage gets collected on this platform

The barriers harness the garbage and drive it towards a platform where it is collected.

After Boyan appeared on a TED Talk to explain his idea, he received enough financial support to put his plan into action. TED Talk: a conference where people give short, powerful talks only 18 minutes long about technology, entertainment and design.

Boyan Slat with some of the ocean plastic his team has collected

If garbage keeps going into the ocean, there could eventually be an ocean where the amount of plastics is roughly 1/3rd the total biomass of fish. That means there would be 1lb of plastic for every 2lbs of fish!

A decayed albatross carcass shows the amount of plastic it had ingested

Plastic objects found in albatross chick carcasses including fishing tackle and items of personal hygiene

A turtle entangled in netting and other debris

Unfortunately with consumer plastic, there is little profit in taking back waste. It doesn't cost us anything to throw it away. But the cost to us could be very high, in the long term.

Plastics can act as a sponge and soak up chemicals in the water Plastics can act as a sponge and soak up chemicals in the water. There are a lot of pollutants in the oceans now. Those chemicals absorb onto the plastic and we know birds and fish are eating those pieces of plastic - so the question is, how does that transfer up the food chain and what is the impact?

Consider the last question and write a response . . . _______________________________________ _______________________________________ _______________________________________ _______________________________________