Even with all of the difficulties the human family faces, I take joy when someone makes an effort to solve one of humanity’s problems. It is sometimes the case that the problem is something most people don’t even think about. I confess that it’s something I rarely think about. The problem is the garbage in the Pacific Ocean.
The beginning of the end for the Pacific Garbage Patch
The eastern garbage patch was discovered in 1997, has been growing ever since. 80 percent of the plastic in the ocean comes from land-based sources. There are six countries in particular that are ocean garbage contributors: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Ocean currents cause the garbage to accumulate in particular spots. The Garbage Patch is much worse than a nasty eyesore. It contributes to the death of many kinds of marine life. turtles often mistake plastic bags for prey such as jellyfish. Abandoned fishing lines, fishing nets and equipment can ensnare and drown dolphins, porpoises and whales. Microplastics have been found in the stomachs of nearly half of the most important species for global fisheries. There are garbage patches in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as well. Garbage patches are an environmental, biodiversity, and food safety problem.
I hope you are with me that ocean garbage patches are a problem to be solved. One of the reasons they haven’t been solved is because they exist outside the borders of any one nation. Governments don’t recognize them as their problem yet. Perhaps they should. But I am pleased to report that there is someone working on this problem. The someone is a young man named Boyan Slat.
Boyan Slat is a Dutch-Croatian inventor and entrepreneur who creates technologies to solve societal problems. He is the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, which develops advanced systems to rid world’s oceans of plastic. Instead of going after the plastic, Boyan devised a system though which, driven by the ocean currents, the plastic would concentrate itself, reducing the theoretical cleanup time from millennia to mere years. In February 2013 he dropped out of his Aerospace Engineering study to start The Ocean Cleanup. The first cleanup prototype was deployed in June 2016, and The Ocean Cleanup now prepares to launch the first working pilot system in late 2017.
The Ocean Cleanup project recently took a step forward with the testing of the latest version of the system. This month, the Ocean Cleanup removed 19,841 pounds of garbage from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
I say “Amen” to this! Let it be as Boyan Slat has said. I take great encouragement in this progress. But I take an even greater encouragement with scope of Boyan Slat’s vision. I consider him an extremely rare individual at this point. He is a person who is actually doing what the New Message from God says humanity must do. Boyan Slat is working on cleansing a polluted ocean. The New Message from God speaks of a thousand solutions required to face the future successfully. I say the Ocean Cleanup is one of them. I say the human family needs a thousand more Boyan Slats. Let this mark the beginning of the end for the Pacific Garbage Patch
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