Once there was a Stone Age, 
a Bronze Age

and now we are in the middle 
of the Plastic Age.

Because every year we produce 
about 300,000,000 tons of plastic

and fraction of that enters rivers, 
water ways and eventually the oceans.

If you want to eat a biscuit nowadays

we have to buy a biscuit 
within a plastic wrapper,

within a plastic tray, 
within a cardboard box,

within a plastic foil, 
within a plastic bag.

It's not hazardous nuclear waste -- 
it's a biscuit.

And this is me. I love diving

just taking you through 
my holiday slides here.

This is at the pristine Azores Islands 
and this is how their beaches look.

Covered with plastic fragments.

Due to sun and waves over the years

the garbage breaks down 
into ever smaller pieces, but remains plastic.

And, well interestingly, you don't see 
a lot of red particles in here

because those look like food

to birds more than any other color.

So this is the result.

And well, the debris primarily collects 
at these 5 rotating currents

called the gyres, where it doesn't only 
directly kills sea life,

but due to the absorption of PCBs and DDTs, 
also poisons the food chain.

A food chain that includes us -- humans.

And while diving in Greece

I came across more plastic bags than fish

and astounded by the depressing sights

my Scottish dive buddy turned to me and said,

"A lot of jellyfish is here, dear. 
Seen about a thousand."

There were no jellyfish.

I won't talk about
environmental issues in general.

I think the common response is,
well that's a long way off.

That's for our children to worry about.

So hello, here I am.

Why don't we just clean it up?

There are a multiple reasons why

current plastic pollution researchers 
believe we should focus on prevention,

for example through education, 
rather than attempting a cleanup operation.

Because we would need to deal 
with 5 colossal areas -- each moving around.

Plastic sizes ranging from these massive ghost nets 
to molecules -- bycatches and emissions.

Furthermore we would need to get 
all the plastic back to land.

It would need to be financially realistic and

in fact the total amount of plastic 
within the gyres [is] unknown.

But about a year ago, when I was 
on my way to the hairdresser's

and I must admit I don't go there often 
but I had this little epiphany.

I saw even old people throwing 
rubbish in the water

and I thought, well some people 
will just never learn, will they?

We'll need the combination of both roads

and we'll need them soon.

So then I simply used this list of concerns

as challenges, and in fact a week later 
as a school assignment,

I had a chance to spend a lot of time

on a subject of choice together 
with a friend of mine.

And this gave me the perfect opportunity

to do new and fundamental research 
regarding plastic pollution.

I then went on a holiday to Greece 
taking this manta trawl with me,

which is the common device 
for sampling plastic,

and so I had to leave home all my clothes

due to low cost airlines weight limit policies.

Well, the trawl we built, however,
is 15 times finer

than the regular one. 
And what we discovered was

that the count of those minute particles 
is in fact 40 times higher

than the larger particles.
So we have to take these small plastics out,

but then we wouldn't want to take 
the important plankton out as well.

Luckily these could simply be separated 
using centrifugal forces.

However, nobody knew how much G forces
common zoo-plankton could survive.

So we took the trawl out again,
and we didn't have a boat,

so and we tested it, and in fact they can survive 
over 50 Gs, which is more than enough

for successful separation.

And then in order to know up to which depth 
the ocean surface should be cleaned,

we designed and built something 
that I call the multilevel trawl.

We basically stuck ten trawls 
on top of each other.

Here you can see us testing that 
on the North Sea,

I thought it was a great day -- 
I was the only one who didn't get sick

but then the so perfectly working trawl 
broke and

of course we didn't quit there,
because I believe you can't clean up something

you don't know the size of.

I've heard the estimations ranging 
from several hundred thousand tons

all the way to a hundred million tons.

I knew we really need a better estimate 
-- some scientific data.

So then I simply contacted 
some professors from the universities

Delft, Utrecht and Hawaii -- 
who then actually helped us in determining

how much plastic there is 
in the top layers of the gyres.

The result -- a whopping 7.25 million tons 
of extractable plastic in 2020.

That's the weight of 1,000 Eiffel towers 
floating in the gyres.

Now, researcher and effect discoverer 
of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Charles Moore

estimates it would take 
79,000 years to remediate that.

However, I believe the Great Pacific 
Garbage Patch

can completely clean itself in just 5 years.

And that is a difference of 78,995 years.

Well, of course, this is the conventional idea 
of extracting litter,

so you have a vessel and a net 
fishing for plastic.

Of course multiple vessels could be used 
to cover a larger area,

but by spanning booms between 
those vessels,

suddenly a much larger area 
would be covered,

because the essence is not to 
catch the debris, but divert it.

Because there is no mesh size,
we can even get out the smallest particles,

and since all organisms can simply move 
under the booms,

we'll be able to eliminate 
bycatches by 99.98%.

But, if we want to do something different

shouldn't we also have to think differently.

For example then: the absorption of PCBs 
by plastic is not such a bad thing,

it's a good thing.

Get all the plastic out and simultaneously 
remove tons and tons

of persistent organic pollutants 
from the marine environment.

But how would we minimize environmental, 
financial and transportation cost then?

Let's use our enemy 
to our advantage, OK?

The oceanic currents moving around 
is not an obstacle -- it's a solution.

Why move through the oceans 
if the oceans can move through you?

By fixing the "ships" to the seabed 
and letting the rotating currents

do their work -- vast amounts of funds, 
manpower and emissions will be saved.

The platforms will, of course, be 
completely self-supportive

receiving their energy from sun, 
currents and waves.

And inspired by my diving at the Azores,
It now actually seems

that the best shape for these platforms 
is that of a Manta Ray,

by letting its wings sway 
like a real manta,

we can assure contact of the inlet
with the surface

even in the roughest weather.

Well, imagine a zigzag array of just 24 
of these platforms cleaning an entire ocean.

Let's make a comparison, OK?

These are the beaches of Hong Kong,
earlier this year.

The largest plastic spill in history.
And this is their source,

just 6 containers.

How much could we get out?

Over 55 of these containers per day.

Not only is plastic directly responsible 
for over a billion USD in vessel damages a year,

no, the awesome surprise for me was that

if we sell the plastics retrieved from the 5 gyres 
we'd make over $500,000,000

and this is in fact more than 
the plan would cost to execute.

In other words -- it's profitable.

But I believe that the key thing is that

only if we realize change is more important 
than money, money will come.

And yes, it will be one of the largest environmental
rescue operations yet, but we created this mess.

Heck, we even invented this new material first 
before we made this mess,

so please don't tell me 
we can't clean this up together.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)