The Ocean Clean Up

Slat, who at age 18 founded a nonprofit known as The Ocean Cleanup, first centered his efforts on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area twice the size of the state of Texas that stands as the world’s largest concentration of plastic pollution. Now he has turned his attention to the world’s rivers, the source of much of the plastic that finds its way to the oceans.

His weapons of choice are robotics––starting with a 2,000-foot-long unmanned floating barrier given the name Wilson. While the U-shaped apparatus failed on its initial foray toward the Garbage Patch, splitting in two late in 2018, an overhauled version of the same structure was launched in June 2019. It succeeded in bringing home some 60 bags of trash, which were recycled and sold as sunglasses beginning in October 2020. The proceeds will be used to fund subsequent cleanup efforts.