1 . The Dutch inventor Boyan Slat spends a lot of time thinking about the ocean.
After five and a half years of hard work, the 23-year-old Slat will watch from dry land as System 001 — a floating barrier nearly 2, 000ft long — snakes (曲折前行) its way out under the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific.
If all goes to plan, Slat says, a group of 60 systems could reduce the amount of plastic there by half by 2025. “I hope that this will be a turning point for the plastic pollution problem,” Slat tells TIME in a phone interview. “For sixty years it has only gotten worse and worse. Now hopefully we’re going to make a difference.”
Saving our oceans has been Slat’s single-minded goal ever since he was 16 years old, when a trip to Greece provided more plastic bag sightings than fish. Coming up with the idea for a floating barrier that could collect plastic using the power of ocean currents (洋流) alone, Slat founded his business, The Ocean Cleanup, aged just 18.
The idea caught people’s imagination around the world. In 2015, an early design of System 001 was featured on TIME’s list of the best inventions of 2015. The project has received millions of dollars of funding thanks to fast-changing public opinion on plastic.
Slat sees his mission as a race against time. Plastic gradually breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics which can finally enter the food chain. “So the sooner we get it out, the better,” Slat says.
A big question that remains is what will happen to the plastic once it is brought back to land from The Ocean Cleanup’s systems. It’s possible that lots of the waste returned to land will be recycled into more single-use plastics that might one day return to the oceans again. “Big problems require big solutions,” he says. “If anyone has any better ideas, we’d love to know.”
1. What can Slat’s invention System 001 be used for?| A．Cleaning up ocean plastic. |
| B．Keeping a beach dry and clean. |
| C．Transporting passengers by sea. |
| D．Protecting living things in the Pacific. |
| A．He has a good head for business. |
| B．He is good at selling his idea to the media. |
| C．He has a deep sense of social responsibility. |
| D．He wants to change public opinion on the ocean. |
| A．It received great technical support worldwide. |
| B．It was unacceptable to fishermen. |
| C．It came into use very soon. |
| D．It was highly rated. |
| A．Making his invention available to the public. |
| B．How to deal with the collected plastic waste. |
| C．Recycling the waste created by his invention. |
| D．How to get more funding from the government. |
