The 20-Year-Old With a Plan to Rid the Sea of Plastic

Boyan Slat’s story is not quite that of a 20-year-old Wunderkind who magically found a potential fix to a longstanding problem. It’s perhaps more accurately described as a combination of personal dedication and trial and error. When going through his old prototypes for a technology that would passively scrub oceans of plastic, he’s almost embarrassed of his early concepts.

“But that’s what science is really,” Slat said. “It’s a work in progress.”

The crowdfunding campaign behind Slat’s Ocean Cleanup Project was announced with strong bidding, no matter: “With two million dollars we can make a theoretical concept come true.” With just two days left in his campaign, Slat successfully collected the funding for his project, bringing him one step closer to realizing a vision of plastic-free oceans.