What I like best is sitting in a room together with really smart engineers thinking about a problem. — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
It's in my nature that when people say something is impossible I like to prove them wrong. — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
Basically I have a fleet of cleanup systems floating around, up to 50 that we plan on deploying. — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
We're starting with the North Pacific gyre simply because it is the largest accumulation of plastic. — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
It's nice there is a cleanup system, but if it doesn't collect any plastic, it's not very useful. — Boyan Slat Cleanup Copy Share Image
The winning concept is the slow-down approach, in which we use a parachute anchor to slow down the system as much as… — Boyan Slat Approach Copy Share Image
The legacy, the waste, is mostly in international waters that are sort of in no man's land and thus considered to be… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
Taking care of the world's ocean garbage problem is one of the largest environmental challenges mankind faces today. — Boyan Slat Challenges Copy Share Image
It will be very hard to convince everyone in the world to handle their plastics responsibly, but what we humans are very… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
The main principle behind the cleanup system is to have a difference in speed between the system and the plastic so that… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
You need a group of people who will continually realize that you will run into problems, and for each you will have… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
We need to close the tap, which means preventing more plastic from reaching the ocean in the first place. — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
The way the clean-up system works is that we let the plastic come to us, using the ocean currents in our advantage. — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
You go to a beach, you see a lot of plastic. It's out of the ocean, it stays out of the ocean,… — Boyan Slat Beach Copy Share Image
When you look at the humanitarian issues - poverty, education, rights, violence - I think there are positive trends. But when you… — Boyan Slat Change Copy Share Image
Look at climate change. That's a bigger problem than plastic, but we can't all focus on that and forget about plastic -… — Boyan Slat Attention Copy Share Image
There is this notion that is quite popular in the environmental scene that every little bit helps, or 'Think global, act local.'… — Boyan Slat Climate Copy Share Image
I envisioned an extremely long network of floating barriers - they're like curtains floating in the ocean which are attached to the… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
To truly rid the oceans of plastic, what we need to do is two things: One, we need to clean up the… — Boyan Slat First place Copy Share Image
About once a month, a vessel visits each of these clean-up systems, almost like a garbage truck of the ocean, would bring… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
We might work on ways to prevent plastic getting into the ocean in the first place. — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
When ideas are confronted with reality, there will always be surprises. — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
When I was 16 years old, I went scuba diving in Greece and saw more plastic bags than fish. I wondered why… — Boyan Slat Diving Copy Share Image
It's a very strange experience to be four or five days from the closest point of land, and you see more plastic… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
There will always be people saying things can't be done. And history shows that time and time again things 'couldn't be done'… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
The concentration of plastic is rapidly increasing in the gyres. Even if you were to close off the tap, and no more… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
The entire brain of the organization is here. The construction drawings and data processing all takes place in Rotterdam. — Boyan Slat Brain Copy Share Image
Truly, the only way to prove that we can rid the oceans of plastic is to actually go out there and deploy… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
The worst is yet to come, because all the plastic that is already out there is going to become more hazardous if… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
I don't understand why 'obsessive' has a negative connotation, I'm an obsessive and I like it. I get an idea and I… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
Whenever I used to do sports at school, there were those children who were picked last. I just wasn't picked at all. — Boyan Slat Children Copy Share Image
When I started there was this consensus that you could never clean this up, that the problem is way too big, the… — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
For 60 years man has been putting plastic into the ocean. And from that day onward we're also taking it back out again. — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
There's no better feeling than having an idea and seeing it become reality, emerging in the physical world. — Boyan Slat Copy Share Image
