“Over 5 trillion pieces of plastic currently litter the ocean. Trash accumulates in 5 ocean garbage patches, with the largest one between Hawaii and California.”

When I read the short paragraph above about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, I was filled with an overpowering sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Luckily for us, Dutch 19-year-old ocean enthusiast Boyan Slat didn’t get sad. Instead, he got smart. He came up with the idea of a generation.

“Why move through the ocean, if the ocean can move through you?”

What started as a school science project eventually became a not-for-profit company called The Ocean Cleanup. With this remarkable young man at its helm, the organization is working to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. One passive system could conceivably remove half of the The Patch in as few as 10 years, using only the power the oceans provide. The ingenious system requires no external energy source.

“Ocean garbage patches are vast but dispersed. By acting like an artificial coastline, we passively concentrate the plastic by orders of magnitude, 100% powered by natural ocean currents.”

You know it’s really rare that I blog about a charity, but this one seems too wonderful and hopeful to pass up. Although we are currently witnessing big steps backward in the fight to save our beautiful world’s ecology, there is still something we can do. I am going to be making regular donations to this group’s efforts.