Nature

(water splashes) BOYAN: When I was 16 years old, I went diving and I was hoping to see all these beautiful reefs and fish, and I looked around me and I just saw more plastic bags than fish.

And this was so shocking and disappointing that I asked myself the question, why can't we just clean this up?

(plastic trash spills upon deck) Plastic pollution is one of the largest threats our oceans face today.

It's very important that we have the belief that we can do this.

Soon after my scuba diving experience, I had to do a science paper back in high school.

And I decided to study the plastic pollution and how I could potentially clean this up.

And the original idea was to have a very long floating barrier in the middle of the ocean attached to the seabed that would use the natural current of the ocean to collect the plastic.

NARRATOR: In 2013, that simple-sounding concept led Boyan Slat to launch the largest effort to date to remove plastic from the world's oceans.

BOYAN: That initial idea, it did spark the imagination of many people around the world, which then allowed us to raise the money and build the first team to start The Ocean Cleanup.

NARRATOR: The scale of the problem demanded the scale of the mission.

It's estimated that up to fourteen million tons of plastic end up in the world's oceans every year.

So Boyan jumped into the deep end, crowdfunding over $2 million and targeting an area called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

It's the largest concentration of plastic trash on the planet.

87,000 tons floating just beneath the surface.

And there are 4 others like it across the world's oceans.

BOYAN: This plastic is super persistent.

It stays in the environment for potentially hundreds of years.

NARRATOR: The debris mainly floats in the first several meters of the water column.

Each year it kills thousands of seabirds, turtles, whales, and other marine mammals.

Some get tangled in it.

Others think it's food.

The plastic disrupts digestion and wreaks havoc on their organs.

Humans are affected too.

BOYAN: This plastic is breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces, which then gets into the food chain, which includes the 3 billion people that rely on seafood as their primary source of protein.

NARRATOR: Microplastics build up with each step up the food chain getting into the tissue of the seafood we eat.

And they're also found in things like tap water, beer, and salt.

The chemicals can damage the endocrine system and lead to reproductive, immune and neurological disorders for both humans and wildlife.

BOYAN: There are people out there that want to see the ocean to be cleaned as much as we want to see the ocean to be clean.

(seagull screeching) The support we've received from our funders, social media followers, governments, companies, has been really quite humbling.

And this gives me a lot of hope.

NARRATOR: Still, it took years of prototyping to get to a design they were happy with.

BOYAN: We had spent years with systems that didn't work, that broke, that didn't collect plastic.

NARRATOR: Finally, in 2021, they emerged with a two vessel system that pulled a floating boom carrying a permeable skirt.

When the skirt fills, the trash is hauled in, and taken to shore for recycling.

BOYAN: For me, the turning point was when I woke up one morning and I opened my phone and then I saw this photograph of this mountain of plastic on the deck of our ship.

That was truly the moment that I knew, okay, this can be done.

(plastic trash spills upon deck) MAN: Woah.

(plastic trash spills upon deck) BOYAN: Since then, we made it three times bigger, which allows us to now clean up an area the size of a football field every five seconds.

(plastic trash spills upon deck) (plastic trash spills upon deck) MAN: Wow.

BOYAN: Until 2021, we had collected a total of about 7,000 kilos.

Now that's an amount we're now collecting in one-and-a-half days, from the Great Pacific Garbage patch.

(plastic trash spills upon deck) NARRATOR: The success has inspired a very ambitious target: to remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.

That will require a fleet of these systems tackling the other garbage patches as well.

But even that won't stop the problem of new plastic streaming into the ocean.

(waves hitting shore) BOYAN: It's definitely a lot wiser to prevent it from going into the ocean than to deal with the downstream consequences.

NARRATOR: So Boyan expanded his operations to target the key rivers that were polluting the sea.

BOYAN: So this is all plastic.

NARRATOR: Just 1,000 rivers spew about 80% of plastic trash into the oceans.

BOYAN: Globally, most of the plastic is actually managed properly.

But, a fraction of that does not get collected, especially in countries where there's more poverty, where there is no money for waste collection.

NARRATOR: The Ocean Cleanup started with some of the most polluted rivers first, in Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, the U.S., and more recently, Jamaica.

Communities along these rivers often face the greatest health risks from polluted water, so Boyan and his team partner with local organizations for guidance and impact.

Here in Kingston, Jamaica's capital, the fishing community's health and livelihood are at stake.

ALECIA: For me, it is most important that we fix this problem.

(seagull screeches) NARRATOR: Alecia Beaufort is the operations manager for Clean Harbours Jamaica.

She's seen her vibrant country overwhelmed by discarded plastic waste.

ALECIA: We had this debris building up for over 60 years here in Jamaica and in Kingston specifically.

When you eat fish, you have to be careful where it's coming from.

The fishermen are struggling with all the plastics that are harming the environment that they work in, so they tend to go further out to sea just to find good food, just to find good fish, just to make a living.

NARRATOR: Jamaica was once one of the highest per capita users of plastic bags.

But in 2019 banned them.

Alecia and others used that momentum to organize country-wide beach cleanups.

And jumped at the opportunity to partner with Boyan's team.

ALECIA: So let us see how much we can get...

The Ocean Cleanup came to Jamaica, and they were able to start what we now call the Kingston Harbour Cleanup Project.

We plan to, first of all, remove all of the garbage that has been built up there over the years.

NARRATOR: It's a big job, about 2,000 truckloads of plastic waste end up in Jamaica's waterways every year.

ALECIA: Most of our waterways are what we call concrete, manmade gullies.

These gullies basically allow for water runoff during rain time and the water is taken straight to the ocean.

NARRATOR: Using knowledge gleaned from other river clean ups, they prepare for the challenge.

MAN: Yeah.

BOYAN: It would be dynamic.

MAN: Yeah.

BOYAN: Like an actual belt.

Jamaica is quite a unique project because rather than only tackling a single river, we're actually tackling the entire city of Kingston.

We're gonna throw in the first barrier and then we adapt from there.

NARRATOR: Here, they're opting for a system called an interceptor barrier.

BOYAN: This was the first time that we have been tackling the type of river that we see in Jamaica.

These are very shallow, very narrow.

NARRATOR: The interceptor barrier works like the ocean system, except that it's permeable nets stay in place to catch debris.

When it rains, the plastic will flow quickly downstream into the nets.

(plastic flowing in stream) (plastic flowing in stream) The team goes upstream to see how much to expect.

ALECIA: As soon as the rain comes and washes down any debris, all floating debris gets trapped by the interceptor barrier.

(thunder booms and heavy rains start) NARRATOR: A heavy rainstorm provides a welcome chance to test the system before they expand it to other gullies.

MICHAEL: This is amazing, you know, we're getting to see a firsthand view of what happens when the rains come down.

We are seeing a nice flow, the currents coming down.

We can see all the bottles and the plastics.

NARRATOR: The Ocean Cleanup also monitors for any wildlife that might get caught in the nets.

MICHAEL: It's effective, and we're really happy for it, and I think going forward we can do more.

NARRATOR: When the storm subsides, the team collects the trash and brings it ashore.

ALECIA: We then go to the barrier itself with our specifically made machine called an interceptor tender.

NARRATOR: Alecia's team makes multiple trips to offload the debris.

(debris falls into pile) ALECIA: Plastics are separated, washed, and then packaged for our recycling partners.

And everything that cannot be recycled is then placed into our dumpster for the landfill.

We hire nearby persons who work at our site and work on our vessel.

And they understand that the problem is not just theirs.

CYRUS: When I first got here, the gullies used to be black and green and mucky.

But since I've been working here, you see it clearing up, little by little.

We cleaning up the ocean and you know, making Jamaica better, so it smell better, the air is better, the fish, the fishes taste better.

BOYAN: It's not just about having a technology in the river.

You need an entire consortium of partners around a river to make the project a success, the system around the system.

ALECIA: Alright, a few things today... NARRATOR: In Jamaica, that system is starting to work.

Since the first interceptor went in, they've installed six more, and another four are on the way.

ALECIA: For the future, I see us cleaning the entire Jamaica.

Just in Kingston, we've been asked by other parishes and other areas, when are you coming to visit?

Because they see a positive change.

The problem in Kingston has been really big.

But with The Ocean Cleanup, we have this ray of hope.

And we hope to just do it for the entire country.

NARRATOR: Boyan is also looking beyond... BOYAN: I think it's very important that the support is aimed at the places where we can have the most impact in the countries where most plastic ends up in the ocean.

NARRATOR: With their combined efforts in rivers and oceans, The Ocean Cleanup is actually doing just what their name suggests.

To date, they've removed over 9,000 tons of trash - equivalent to about 10% of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Not bad for an organization hatched from a high school assignment.

And while Boyan would like to see a day when reduced plastic use makes his efforts unnecessary, he's committed to keeping plastic out of the oceans until that day comes.

BOYAN: I think that in the not-too-distant future, we can have cleaned the ocean.

And we'll look back at today in disgust, thinking about how could we have allowed all that plastic to simply flow into the ocean uninterrupted for so long?

Why didn't we do this earlier?

I think we're truly just a matter of years from from achieving that.