The Dutch boy mopping up a sea of plastic

It's a tad depressing that some scientists are telling him he's doing it wrong, and should instead be doing something else, like working to prevent plastics from entering the oceans in the first place. That is a vastly harder problem because plastics enter the oceans through many paths, from falling off container ships to washing down rivers to being carried out by the winds or falling off pleasure craft (I myself used to have several spare bumpers for my boat, donated by what I like to think of as "The Society for Mariners Who Aren't Very Good at Tying Knots").

We don't have particularly good data on which paths account for how much: http://www.sea.edu/plastics/frequently_asked_questions

Easy solutions, like anti-dumping treaties, are already in place. A relatively cheap means of removing plastic may not be a bad next step.

Citizens willing to put time, effort and money into investigating practical engineering solutions to these problems should be encouraged, not dismissed. Particularly by people who are not themselves working on the alternative solutions they claim would be superior.

The most interesting part of this story is that scientist can't seem to find this plastic. It's missing: http://news.sciencemag.org/environment/2014/06/ninety-nine-p...

Saw his TedX talk in Delft; inspirational! Although there are plenty of challenges ahead, he proved that strong will gets you far. His crowd-funding campaign was a blitz from what I remember.

The technology needs a lot more investment than he raised for large-scale deployment, but I think he shook people awake at the very least.

I think he also made a wise choice of staying in The Netherlands. Water management is definitely a forte, especially in Delft. The marine technology department is attached to mechanical engineering.

Will be interesting to see what the real tipping point will be for this concept to experience another 10x jump.

Found a new interview with him from September 2014 here, just raised 2 million via crowd funding, if it works it would be astonishing...big ask but http://www.globalinnovationmagazine.com/issues/oct2014/#26-2...