Boyan Slat

The Ocean Cleanup – Delft, Netherlands

Boyan Slat is a Dutch Inventor and entrepreneur who creates technological solutions to global problems. He is the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup; a foundation which develops advanced systems to rid world’s oceans of plastic.

In 2011, aged 16, Slat found more plastic than fish while diving. He made ocean plastic pollution the subject of a high school project examining why it was considered impossible to clean up. He later came up with the idea of building a passive plastic catchment system, using circulating ocean currents to net plastic waste, which he presented at a TEDx talk in Delft in 2012.

For society to progress, we should not only move forward but also clean up after ourselves.

“We think the fastest way to clean the ocean is to learn by doing.“

Slat discontinued aerospace engineering studies to devote his time to developing his idea. Now, Boyan currently gives lead to a team of about 80 people, but spends most of his time on research and engineering, through which he co-authored about a dozen scientific papers and multiple patents. 

After 4 years of reconnaissance expeditions, testing and many design iterations, on September 8 2018 the world’s first ocean cleanup system was launched from San Francisco, soon after followed by deployment inside the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

When I was 16 years old, I went scuba diving in Greece and saw more plastic bags than fish. I wondered why we couldn’t just clean it up. That rather simple question stuck in my head.

“There’s no better feeling than having an idea and seeing it become reality, emerging in the physical world.”

Publications: See Scientific Articles

Website 1) Ocean Cleanup
Website 2) Boyan Slat

Facebook (Personal Page): https://www.facebook.com/boyanslat
Facebook (Business Page): https://www.facebook.com/TheOceanCleanup
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boyanslat/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boyanslat/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/BoyanSlat

Video 1) Beyond the Horizon 
Video 2)  How to solve big sustainability problems