WEBVTT

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Once there was a Stone Age, 
a Bronze Age

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

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

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

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If you want to eat a biscuit nowadays

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we have to buy a biscuit 
within a plastic wrapper,

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within a plastic tray, 
within a cardboard box,

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within a plastic foil, 
within a plastic bag.

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

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And this is me. I love diving

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just taking you through 
my holiday slides here.

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

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Covered with plastic fragments.

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Due to sun and waves over the years

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

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

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because those look like food

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to birds more than any other color.

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So this is the result.

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

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

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

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A food chain that includes us -- humans.

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And while diving in Greece

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I came across more plastic bags than fish

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and astounded by the depressing sights

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my Scottish dive buddy turned to me and said,

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

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There were no jellyfish.

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I won't talk about
environmental issues in general.

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

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That's for our children to worry about.

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So hello, here I am.

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Why don't we just clean it up?

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There are a multiple reasons why

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current plastic pollution researchers 
believe we should focus on prevention,

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

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

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

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

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It would need to be financially realistic and

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

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

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

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I saw even old people throwing 
rubbish in the water

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

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We'll need the combination of both roads

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and we'll need them soon.

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So then I simply used this list of concerns

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

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I had a chance to spend a lot of time

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

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And this gave me the perfect opportunity

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to do new and fundamental research 
regarding plastic pollution.

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

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which is the common device 
for sampling plastic,

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and so I had to leave home all my clothes

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due to low cost airlines weight limit policies.

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

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than the regular one. 
And what we discovered was

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

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

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

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Luckily these could simply be separated 
using centrifugal forces.

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

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

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

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for successful separation.

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

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

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We basically stuck ten trawls 
on top of each other.

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

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

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but then the so perfectly working trawl 
broke and

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

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you don't know the size of.

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

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all the way to a hundred million tons.

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

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So then I simply contacted 
some professors from the universities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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However, I believe the Great Pacific 
Garbage Patch

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can completely clean itself in just 5 years.

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And that is a difference of 78,995 years.

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

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

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

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but by spanning booms between 
those vessels,

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suddenly a much larger area 
would be covered,

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


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

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and since all organisms can simply move 
under the booms,

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

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But, if we want to do something different

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shouldn't we also have to think differently.

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

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it's a good thing.

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Get all the plastic out and simultaneously 
remove tons and tons

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of persistent organic pollutants 
from the marine environment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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receiving their energy from sun, 
currents and waves.

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

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

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by letting its wings sway 
like a real manta,

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we can assure contact of the inlet
with the surface

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even in the roughest weather.

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

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Let's make a comparison, OK?

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

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

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just 6 containers.

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How much could we get out?

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Over 55 of these containers per day.

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

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no, the awesome surprise for me was that

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

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

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In other words -- it's profitable.

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But I believe that the key thing is that

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

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

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

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

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)