By starting this thread, I hope I will avoid the negative wave that rose up in my Greta Thunberg thread. No matter what you think of Boyan and his background or agendas, one thing is clear - what he created truly has the capacity of intercepting the vast majority of plastic in rivers.


The system looks like it could be improved even further. For example, those metal railings on the conveyor belt can be wider and have spikes on them to better catch bigger pieces of plastic, like 4-gallon tubs or stuff like that.

Also, the containers that will hold the trash seem to be of too small a capacity for bigger or filthier rivers. Maybe a built-in compression system that heats up the plastic and crushes it into thin layers could work wonders by increasing the capacity of the containers by 1000%. However, such a system might require much greater amounts of energy that the solar panels might not be capable of providing yet.

And I'm not very clear on how the problem with passing ships stands. He said that some rivers' current carries the plastic only through a narrow channel, which helps in positioning the Interceptors in a way that will be most efficient. However, river currents change with the weather and other factors. And also there are rivers that don't have a systematic channel of flowing plastic, but rather have litter scattered all over.

The only possible solution to this that I can see is to split the river into equal parts and place as many Interceptors as necessary, but space them out in such a way that they cover all the plastic flowing channels and still allow ships to navigate around the barriers and pass through easily without the need for complex and risky maneuvers.

This might be quite difficult for rivers that are tens of kilometers wide, as it would require very long barriers that need to be spaced out carefully to accommodate for bad weather which could make navigating the river more difficult for smaller (and bigger) vessels that pass by.

But all of this will be taken care of, and optimized to the highest degree, by the team Boyan has. I'm sure of it.

We've reached that point in time where YouTubers are rising and organizing tree-planting campaigns, and 25-years-old kids are cleaning the world's waters of plastic. We're slowly heading in the right direction. A change of mentality is on the horizon. It's a pity we had to inflict so much damage to the planet before we finally started heading the right way.

I'm hopeful and looking forward to the future of this, and all other conservation efforts that are going on right now.