The Ocean Cleanup

Boyan Slat is known from his 'The Ocean Cleanup': a project to extract the plastic waste from the seas with the aid of enormous machines.

After years of collecting money and trying out prototypes, the first system enters the water in June 2018. He just returned from Davos, where at the World Economic Forum 2000 heads of state, scientists, bankers, CEOs of top companies came together to find solutions to the most urgent issues of our time.

Big breakthrough this year 

Eleven multinationals, including Unilever, L'Oreal and Coca Cola, have promised that all their packaging will be fully recyclable by 2025.

Can the planet still be saved?

We ask the Boyan Slat. In 2012, Slat designed an installation to extract the floating plastic waste, the so-called plastic soup, from the oceans. He set up the organization The Ocean Cleanup and held a TED talk that went viral in March 2013, attracting a lot of interest from the press and sponsors. Slat also received various prizes, such as the 2014 Champions of the Earth prize from the UN Environment Program (UNEP). In 2016, the Dutch government also decided to support Slat's initiative. In 2018 the first cleaning system will enter the water, hopefully the beginning of the end of the plastic soup.