Plastic Removal Quotes

For 60 years man has been putting plastic into the ocean. And from that day onward we're also taking it back out again.

Truly, the only way to prove that we can rid the oceans of plastic is to actually go out there and deploy the world's first ocean-cleaning system.

When I saw that scene [in ocean from the Aquarius] for the first time, it blew me away. It caused me to reflect on my age, my history and all that I've been through in Brazil. Having been away from Brazil for so long, while not speaking in my own tongue, when I saw that image, I felt like I was taking my first deep breath after nearly suffocating to death. It was like the plastic had been removed from my head. Even if this breath turned out to be my last, at least I got to have this one moment of release. At least I got this one chance.

The winning concept is the slow-down approach, in which we use a parachute anchor to slow down the system as much as possible, allowing the natural winds and waves to push the plastic into the system.

It was a long journey, but it was also a relief to see that first plastic being caught.

The main principle behind the cleanup system is to have a difference in speed between the system and the plastic so that it goes faster than the plastic, and you can collect it.

The way the clean-up system works is that we let the plastic come to us, using the ocean currents in our advantage.

You go to a beach, you see a lot of plastic. It's out of the ocean, it stays out of the ocean, so that's good. But the thing is that in this Great Pacific garbage patch, this area twice the size of Texas, there's simply no coastlines to collect plastic. So the idea is to have these very long floating barriers.