Quotes by Boyan Slat - Page 2

Can we build a system which is able to survive on the ocean for years? That is the key question we are trying to answer here with the North Sea prototype.
Boyan Slat /
Ocean
Prototype
Sea
North
Question
Survive
To Survive
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You need a group of people who will continually realize that you will run into problems, and for each you will have hundreds or thousands of ways you can approach it.
Boyan Slat /
Continually
Problems People Will
Hundreds
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The main principle behind the cleanup system is to have a difference in speed between the system and the plastic so that it goes faster than the plastic, and you can collect it.
Boyan Slat /
Faster
Plastic
Speed
Principle
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It will be very hard to convince everyone in the world to handle their plastics responsibly, but what we humans are very good in, is inventing technical solutions to our problems.
Boyan Slat /
Convince
Handle
Humans
Inventing
Solutions
Good World Will
Good World Problems
Problems
Responsibly
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When I was 16 years old, I went scuba diving in Greece and saw more plastic bags than fish. I wondered why we couldn't just clean it up. That rather simple question stuck in my head.
Boyan Slat /
Bags
Clean
Diving
Greece
Plastic
Scuba
Stuck
Fish
Wondered
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The winning concept is the slow-down approach, in which we use a parachute anchor to slow down the system as much as possible, allowing the natural winds and waves to push the plastic into the system.
Boyan Slat /
Allowing
Plastic
Anchor
Parachute
Waves
Winds
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When I started there was this consensus that you could never clean this up, that the problem is way too big, the ocean is way too rough, the issue of bycatch - 'plastic is too big, plastic is too small.'
Boyan Slat /
Ocean
Clean
Consensus
Plastic
Rough
Issue
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Coastlines are very effective ways of catching plastic. But the thing is, in those vast ocean garbage patches, there's simply no coastlines to catch any plastic. So we built our own artificial coastline.
Boyan Slat /
Ocean
Artificial
Coastline
Garbage
Patches
Plastic
Catch
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The concentration of plastic is rapidly increasing in the gyres. Even if you were to close off the tap, and no more plastic entered the ocean, that plastic would stay there, probably for hundreds of years.
Boyan Slat /
Ocean
Concentration
Plastic
Tap
Entered
Hundreds
Hundreds Of Years
Increasing
Rapidly
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The way you advance a technological society is to try things - to be controversial and contrarian in your thinking in order to get to something that eventually people say, 'I told you it was a great idea.'
Boyan Slat /
Controversial
Great Idea
Advance
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This plastic doesn't go away by itself, and to just let hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic be out there to be fragmented into these small and dangerous microplastics to me seems like an unacceptable scenario.
Boyan Slat /
Fragmented
Plastic
Seems
Itself
Go Away
Small
Hundreds
Hundreds Of Thousands
Scenario
Thousands
Tons
Unacceptable
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I'm a firm believer of the venture capitalist-style approach to solving problems. Rather than doing many small things that you hope add up, it's much more effective to work on projects that are high risk and high reward.
Boyan Slat /
Believer
Firm
Small Things
Venture
Firm Believer
Reward
Solving
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There are already dozens of organizations working on trying to prevent plastic from going into the ocean, through advocacy, education, awareness, all great work, yet nobody was addressing the stock of existing pollution.
Boyan Slat /
Education
Ocean
Advocacy
Awareness
Great Work
Plastic
Pollution
Trying
Addressing
Nobody
Through
Dozens
Working
Existing
Organizations
Prevent
Stock
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We absolutely need to clean up the plastic that's already in the ocean. It won't go away by itself. But we do also need to make sure that no more plastic enters the oceans in the first place. These things should go hand in hand.
Boyan Slat /
Ocean
Clean
Plastic
Absolutely
Clean Up
First Place
Go Away
Hand
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Look at climate change. That's a bigger problem than plastic, but we can't all focus on that and forget about plastic - that isn't how the world works. We can divide our attention across different things, using clean-up to strengthen prevention.
Boyan Slat /
Bigger
Climate
Climate Change
Different Things
Plastic
Prevention
Change Focus World
Change Focus Look
Divide
Strengthen
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When you look at the humanitarian issues - poverty, education, rights, violence - I think there are positive trends. But when you look at climate change, at plastic pollution and other forms of pollution, at overconsumption, it's a different story.
Boyan Slat /
Education
Positive
Climate
Climate Change
Plastic
Pollution
Poverty
Rights
Violence
Forms
Different Story
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The reason why the Wright brothers were successful wasn't because they had the most resources, but because they understood how invention works. You have to iterate quickly, and you should be prepared to fail. Because things often don't go as planned.
Boyan Slat /
Be Prepared
Invention
Prepared
Resources
Understood
Wright Brothers
Works
Brothers
Fail
Planned
Quickly
The Wright Brothers
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Whenever you start working on something, you have to go about it with the underlying assumption that this puzzle has a solution, right? If you started a jigsaw puzzle not knowing whether all the pieces were in the box, it would not be a fun exercise.
Boyan Slat /
Assumption
Exercise
Fun
Jigsaw
Not Knowing
Pieces
Go
Box
Working
Jigsaw Puzzle
Right
Puzzle
Solution
Start
Underlying
Whenever
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We use a curtain, so we don't use a net, so there's nothing sea life can get entangled with. And also, the system moves very slowly. It moves around 4 inches per second on average. So really, the chances of sea life being harmed by this are very minimal.
Boyan Slat /
Average
Inches
Sea
Chances
Curtain
Entangled
Harmed
Slowly
Per
Minimal
Net
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There is this notion that is quite popular in the environmental scene that every little bit helps, or 'Think global, act local.' I disagree with that. I think you have to start with how big the solution needs to be to solve the problem and then reason backward from there.
Boyan Slat /
Environmental
Disagree
Notion
Backward
Solution
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I think very often problems are so big, people approach problems from the bottom up: 'If only I do this little bit, then hopefully there will be some sort of snowball effect that will be bigger and bigger.' I'm much more in favor of the top-down approach to problem-solving.
Boyan Slat /
Problem Solving
Snowball
Problems People Will
Favor
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I envisioned an extremely long network of floating barriers - they're like curtains floating in the ocean which are attached to the seabed. So what happens is that the current comes around and plastic gets pushed towards these barriers. And because it's in a V-shape, the plastic gets push towards the center.
Boyan Slat /
Ocean
Barriers
Floating
Plastic
Attached
Center
Current
Envisioned
Extremely
Towards
Network
Push
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You go to a beach, you see a lot of plastic. It's out of the ocean, it stays out of the ocean, so that's good. But the thing is that in this Great Pacific garbage patch, this area twice the size of Texas, there's simply no coastlines to collect plastic. So the idea is to have these very long floating barriers.
Boyan Slat /
Ocean
Barriers
Beach
Floating
Garbage
Pacific
Plastic
Texas
Good Great Long
Collect
Patch
Stays
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To truly rid the oceans of plastic, what we need to do is two things: One, we need to clean up the legacy pollution, the stuff that has been accumulating for decades and doesn't go away by itself. But, two, we need to close the tap, which means preventing more plastic from reaching the oceans in the first place.
Boyan Slat /
Clean
Decades
Legacy
Plastic
Pollution
Preventing
Reaching
Stuff
Two
Need
Go
Accumulate
Away
Been
Clean Up
Close
Itself
First
Tap
First Place
Means
Go Away
Place
Oceans
Rid
Truly
Which
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About once a month, a vessel visits each of these clean-up systems, almost like a garbage truck of the ocean, would bring the plastic back to shore where it would then be processed and recycled into new products that we would then sell, at a premium, of course, because we could sell it as being made out of ocean plastic.
Boyan Slat /
Ocean
Garbage
New Products
Plastic
Premium
Recycled
Shore
Truck
Vessel
Processed
Systems
Visits
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Boyan Slat Quotes - Page 2

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