The Ocean Cleanup's latest invention: Sunglasses made of recycled ocean plastic

Ocean pollution is a major problem on this planet. And we're finding that the plastic floating on top of the water in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is breaking down into microplastics and sinking to the bottom of the ocean, making it even more difficult to clean up. So now what? There are many companies working on solutions to clean up the ocean. But one company, the Ocean Cleanup, has developed a system for pulling plastic out of the ocean and is now creating products made of that recycled plastic. Joining me today is Boyan Slat of the ocean cleanup and they have come full circle. Today they're unveiling a new product they have produced out of plastic that they've harvested from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Boyan, and thanks for joining me and how you do it today. My pleasure, thanks for having me. So you guys are unveiling a pair of sunglasses that you made out of ocean plastic. Can you just walk us through that process? How did you break apart the plastic and how are you producing these sunglasses? Sure, so it's been quite a challenge really, of course, the most challenging step was to actually collect the plastic. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is is 2000 kilometers from shore to gears to Chris. Developed the technology to a point that we harvested our first plastic. But we got that done last year. We took the first plastic to ports and then we have to set up our own supply chain to turn the trash into basically treasure to clean up more trash. Because of course we are non profit. So the only reason why we do this is to help clean more plastic from the ocean. And the idea is that by recycling this into beautiful sustainable product, in this case sunglasses, that we hope to create a new revenue stream through which we can actually fund the continuation of the cleanup. So once it was in port, of course, we then actually sort the waste we had to wash it, shred it, then recycle it into sort of new new base material, and eventually with our partners we were able to turn this into, I think pretty nice product. So could you walk us through the process? So I've seen like the little jars they look like little beads of plastic. Yeah, so when the plastic comes to land it's really quite mixed and it's encrusted with salt. The stuff sometimes has been floating out there for decades, so it's really quite degraded as well. The first thing we had to do is to separate the stuff that still usable from the stuff that's more degraded to really get to the pure plastic, we shred it we had to mold it into indeed those pellets. Then we added a few percent of additives to ensure that the material is strong enough to give it its color back. And that's then we were able to use injection molding with to actually mold into the sunglasses. So one question I had was, are the lenses part of that recycled plastic that you found too? Cuz I was wondering like how do they do lenses? Yeah, [INAUDIBLE] could do that, it's really the frame that's made from the [UNKNOWN]. For sure it's the frame, okay cool. Everything that could be made out of recycled material we did. So from of cause the packaging to the case. The case is coming in, we recycled that from material that used to be our first clean up system. And even like the hinges of the sunglasses are made from recycled stainless steel. So what could be recycled we did, but of course it's really the frame that's made from the plastic we took out of the ocean. I gotta say they look pretty cool. They look really stylish. Do you have a pair that you could model for us now. Yes, here they are and it's really quite incredible to look at this as a really premium feel to it. And do you think this was toxic garbage floating in the middle of the ocean about a year ago? To me quite, quite unbelievable really. They look really neat, they're pretty awesome. And it has the Ocean Cleanup logo on the sides? It does, yeah, and actually on the inside it has a QR code and if you then scanned it with your phone you can actually see footage of plastic being taken out of the ocean that's now in your pair of sun glasses. [LAUGH] It's pretty awesome. So yeah. So one thing I don't know right now is, how much do they cost? So each pair is going to sell now for $199 available through our website. And with it we using all of the proceeds to go back to the mission with which actually, which means that actually one pair equates to cleaning 24 football fields worth, Wow, Of Pacific Garbage Patch. So of course we're not doing this because we thought the world needs another beautiful product, It's really reason why we're doing this is because we want to create a way to fund the cleanup bring. It's also kind of like a proof of concept to that you guys were able to go out in the ocean, collect plastic and make something beautiful out of it. Correct? Yeah, never been done before. The now quite limited in terms of the amount of plastic that we have, the plastic was just. In addition, the main purpose last year was to test the technology, but of course in coming years will get hopefully much larger volume of plastic to shore and hopefully will be able to really scale this up as well. So do you guys have systems currently running right now in the Pacific garbage Patch? And so at this moment, we've had the interceptors in rivers in terms of the clean plastic that's already in the ocean. This year is really about developing the next generation technology, so taking the lessons from what we learned last year in the Patch and applying them to the system that we're deploying next year, which is gonna be system two, we can catch plastic. But now it's about scaling it to the size that can actually clean the clean the Patch. Yeah, so hopefully next year will will be deploying that in the bench. So how many interceptors do you guys have deployed right now around the world. But three interceptions in the water? Right now one is in Jakarta. When is in Malaysia and once Indonesia and Yahoo to start rolling out lot more. Beginning of next year. So in a few months from now. So we're now preparing for series production and will hopefully see a lot more of it. Interceptions in reversing around the world. How much garbage are they pulling out of the River on a daily basis? Do you guys have figures on that? Yeah, so of course we're still in the kind of the debugging phase to really get the up time that we once this year actually quite challenging with covid. When of course, if you can't empty them because the countries in lockdown 'cause you're not going to have the option that you want. And also when flying spare parts, all of that was really delayed this year, but. Yeah, theoretical capacity is roughly 5050 cubic meters per person, and if the record catch that we had now was full system to 30 cubic meters in four half hours, so it's not bad. But of course again, I think we really need to work on getting the uptime and reliability where we wanted to be. I think there are some worrying trends in that. Yes, of course. The thing is, plastic has increased tremendously this year. The oil price is extremely low right now as well, which means that it's much more attractive to make new plastic rather than recycle existing plastic. So I do think those are trends that you can expect to see back in the amount of plastic going to the ocean. So yeah, it's definitely enough work to do still. So do you guys have any other products in development now that you're trying to create with the recycled plastic? But I think will do will do a few more for sure. It's we're just starting with sunglasses because I think it's. It makes sense. It's something durable, so doesn't end up back in the ocean, and it's also something you carry around. And of course they were fully intended on word of mouth to raise awareness about what we do, so that says that they sunglasses makes sense. We had received tremendous amount of good suggestions, I think, from former supporters of what else we could make for this. And yeah, so we're definitely thinking about doing more than just sunglasses, but we're starting with one and then see how much interest there is in actually getting involved with this cool. When will the sunglasses go on sale? An working people buy them? So the clip sunglasses are available right now through our websites theoceancleanup.com. And again, every pair should be able to allow us to clean 24 football fields worth of groups of the garbage bags. It's amazing. Cool, well, thank you so much for your time Boyan. Good luck today on your big unveil. I'm excited to watch it. Thank you if you recommend sick, you want one too quickly because I think expect that. Of course we can only make 25. Gave them now because of the amount of testing we have, I think the next plastic will be turned into sunglasses towards the end of next year. So we want to get hold of them. I recommend signing up quickly. [MUSIC]