Ocean plastic: How tech is being used to clean up waste problem

Key Facts

Image source, The Ocean Cleanup Image caption, Plastic bottles pile up behind the Ocean Cleanup's Interceptor barrier in Kingston Harbour, Jamaica Trying to solve the world's ocean plastic pollution problem has been a "long and painful journey" for Dutch entrepreneur Boyan Slat.
While this represents just 0.2% of the 100 million kilograms of plastic contained in the world's largest patch of plastic rubbish, he said it was still worth it: "Everything big starts small, right?" The team believes it will have collected 1% of the patch by the end of this year using its current system - but they are scaling up their operations to try to clean up patches faster.
Image source, The Ocean Cleanup Image caption, Rubbish filtered from the Klang River in Selangor, Malaysia moves along an Interceptor's conveyor belt 'STOPPING THE TAP' Prof Richard Lampitt of the National Oceanography Centre told BBC News in 2018 he believed using boats to pull nets and shuttle plastic from ocean garbage patches to ports could have a high carbon cost.
Image source, The Ocean Cleanup Image caption, Boyan said he hoped there would no longer be a need for The Ocean Cleanup in future While trying to take on the world's marine pollution problem is undoubtedly tough, and contingent on reduced plastic production and consumption in the first place, Boyan has high hopes for the future.