When diving in Greece, Boyan Slat discovered that there was more plastic than fish in the water. The 19-year-old was not only inspired to take action, but he has come up with plan to clean up half the garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean -- in just 10 years.
With millions of tons of plastic making its way into the oceans, the environmental activist devised a feasible and efficient way to extract it from the water using "the currents to [his] advantage" by attaching a floating structure to the sea bed to capture the waste.
Watch Slat explain his idea in the video above.
"I don't really view my age as a disadvantage to get these things done. Simply I've thought about how to tackle the problem and I've worked for a number of years to bring it closer to reality," says Slat, who is founder and president of the Ocean Cleanup Foundation. "The Internet really made this project possible... You can do an awful lot of things with a limited amount of resources."
For more information, check out Slat's website and visit theoceancleanup.com.
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