At the age of 16, Boyan Slat expected to see colourful fish while scuba diving off the coast of Greece. Instead, he found plastic bags, bottles and other rubbish drifting through the water, leaving him with a question that would shape the rest of his life. Why were people cleaning beaches while millions of tonnes of plastic remained in the oceans? Rather than accepting the problem as impossible to solve, the Dutch teenager began developing an idea that many experts initially dismissed. More than a decade later, that idea has grown into The Ocean Cleanup, a global nonprofit that has removed millions of kilograms of plastic from oceans and rivers while continuing its mission to tackle one of the planet's biggest environmental challenges.
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