Turning off the Tap on Plastic
Plastic/is one of the major causes of ocean pollution. While he was still a high school student in the Netherlands,/Boyan Slat decided to do something about it. Can you guess/what he did?
In 2011,/when I was 16,/I went diving in Greece. I was excited to experience the beautiful ocean. However,/it was totally different from what I had expected:/I saw more plastic waste than fish. I asked myself,/“Why can’t we just clean this up?” Maybe I was being naive,/but I decided to give it a try.
By 2013,/I had founded an NPO, The Ocean Cleanup. Our mission is/to remove plastic from the oceans. Our target is a huge area in the North Pacific Ocean,/one of the major sites of plastic waste accumulation.
After some difficulties,/we got our system to work in 2021. Two boats collect plastic/by pulling a barrier through the water. The waste is pulled out/and taken to shore for recycling.
We are still at the pilot stage,/but we are making progress. We’ve removed more than 0.2 percent of the plastic/in the target area. We still don’t know/exactly how long the project will take. However,/at this rate/it will take us 500 years. There must be a better way.
A better way to stop polluting the oceans with plastic/would be to simply reduce the use of plastic.
Since the introduction of plastics/in the first half of the 20th century,/the demand has increased rapidly. About 400 million tons of plastic/is produced each year. It weighs more than 1,000 Empire State Buildings. And somewhere between 9 million and 14 million tons/is believed to enter rivers, lakes, and oceans/each year.
Reducing the amount of plastic we use/will be difficult/because we cannot do without plastic/in our daily lives. As the world’s population increases/and more people start to enjoy modern life,/the demand for plastic will naturally grow. According to some researchers,/the use of plastic will become three times greater/by 2060.
Canada and the EU have banned/“single use” of certain plastic items. But this will reduce consumption/only in a small way. It will be nearly impossible/to reduce plastic use/as a whole.
Now,/you may wonder/if there is any effective way/to reduce plastic pollution. One way is/to improve waste management. People in Europe, the United States, Japan, and South Korea/are among the heaviest users of plastic. They consume/about one-third of the global total. However,/these countries are responsible/for only around one percent of what flows into the ocean. This is partly due to their systems/for waste collection and disposal.
Waste management,/however,/is not so effective/in many other countries in Asia,/as well as in West Africa and Latin America. They are the plastic pollution hot spots of the world.
Ideally,/every city in the world/should have good garbage collection and disposal systems. But waste management is costly. Improving systems could take many years. In the meantime,/thousands of tons of plastic/continue to flow into the ocean every day through rivers.
We looked at/more than 100,000 of the world’s rivers. We found/that nearly 80 percent of all plastic flowing into the ocean/comes from just 1,000 of those rivers:/just one percent.
This fact pointed us/toward a better way to clean the oceans. While we wait for the world/to build better waste management systems,/we can focus on rivers. We can turn off the tap.
The Ocean Cleanup is already working on 10 rivers/in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic and the United States.
Our latest site is the Río Motagua in Guatemala. In the first three weeks alone,/we collected 816 tons of trash. Of this amount,/272 tons was plastic. This is more than all of the plastic waste/that flows into the ocean from France/in one year.
Plastic pollution harms the environment,/damages the economy,/and can threaten the health of people in coastal areas. Plastic is one of the biggest threats/our oceans face today.
Reducing plastic use/is good for the environment,/but it is difficult. However,/this doesn’t mean/that there is nothing we can do about it. We know effective solutions exist.
Collecting plastic in rivers/is the most economical method/to reach our goal. But there is no time to waste.
Plastic/is one of the major causes of ocean pollution. While he was still a high school student in the Netherlands,/Boyan Slat decided to do something about it. Can you guess/what he did?
In 2011,/when I was 16,/I went diving in Greece. I was excited to experience the beautiful ocean. However,/it was totally different from what I had expected:/I saw more plastic waste than fish. I asked myself,/“Why can’t we just clean this up?” Maybe I was being naive,/but I decided to give it a try.
By 2013,/I had founded an NPO, The Ocean Cleanup. Our mission is/to remove plastic from the oceans. Our target is a huge area in the North Pacific Ocean,/one of the major sites of plastic waste accumulation.
After some difficulties,/we got our system to work in 2021. Two boats collect plastic/by pulling a barrier through the water. The waste is pulled out/and taken to shore for recycling.
We are still at the pilot stage,/but we are making progress. We’ve removed more than 0.2 percent of the plastic/in the target area. We still don’t know/exactly how long the project will take. However,/at this rate/it will take us 500 years. There must be a better way.
A better way to stop polluting the oceans with plastic/would be to simply reduce the use of plastic.
Since the introduction of plastics/in the first half of the 20th century,/the demand has increased rapidly. About 400 million tons of plastic/is produced each year. It weighs more than 1,000 Empire State Buildings. And somewhere between 9 million and 14 million tons/is believed to enter rivers, lakes, and oceans/each year.
Reducing the amount of plastic we use/will be difficult/because we cannot do without plastic/in our daily lives. As the world’s population increases/and more people start to enjoy modern life,/the demand for plastic will naturally grow. According to some researchers,/the use of plastic will become three times greater/by 2060.
Canada and the EU have banned/“single use” of certain plastic items. But this will reduce consumption/only in a small way. It will be nearly impossible/to reduce plastic use/as a whole.
Now,/you may wonder/if there is any effective way/to reduce plastic pollution. One way is/to improve waste management. People in Europe, the United States, Japan, and South Korea/are among the heaviest users of plastic. They consume/about one-third of the global total. However,/these countries are responsible/for only around one percent of what flows into the ocean. This is partly due to their systems/for waste collection and disposal.
Waste management,/however,/is not so effective/in many other countries in Asia,/as well as in West Africa and Latin America. They are the plastic pollution hot spots of the world.
Ideally,/every city in the world/should have good garbage collection and disposal systems. But waste management is costly. Improving systems could take many years. In the meantime,/thousands of tons of plastic/continue to flow into the ocean every day through rivers.
We looked at/more than 100,000 of the world’s rivers. We found/that nearly 80 percent of all plastic flowing into the ocean/comes from just 1,000 of those rivers:/just one percent.
This fact pointed us/toward a better way to clean the oceans. While we wait for the world/to build better waste management systems,/we can focus on rivers. We can turn off the tap.
The Ocean Cleanup is already working on 10 rivers/in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic and the United States.
Our latest site is the Río Motagua in Guatemala. In the first three weeks alone,/we collected 816 tons of trash. Of this amount,/272 tons was plastic. This is more than all of the plastic waste/that flows into the ocean from France/in one year.
Plastic pollution harms the environment,/damages the economy,/and can threaten the health of people in coastal areas. Plastic is one of the biggest threats/our oceans face today.
Reducing plastic use/is good for the environment,/but it is difficult. However,/this doesn’t mean/that there is nothing we can do about it. We know effective solutions exist.
Collecting plastic in rivers/is the most economical method/to reach our goal. But there is no time to waste.