““The Great Pacific Garbage Patch can now be cleaned,” announced Dutch entrepreneur Boyan Slat, the wonderkid inventor who’s spent a decade inventing systems for waterborne litter collection.
Recent tests on his Ocean Cleanup rig called System 002, invented to tackle the 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic pollution, were a success, leading Slat to predict that most of the oceanic garbage patches could be removed by 2040.
Intersections of ocean currents have created the massive floating islands of plastic trash—five slow-moving whirlpools that pull litter from thousands of miles away into a single radius.
The largest one sits between California and Hawaii, and 27-year-old Slat has been designing and testing his systems out there, launching from San Francisco since 2013.
GNN has reported on his original design for the floating device, but his engineering team improved upon it. System 002, nicknamed “Jenny,” successfully netted 9,000 kilograms, or around 20,000 pounds in its first trial.
It’s carbon-neutral, able to capture microplastics as small as 1 millimeter in diameter, and was designed to pose absolutely no threat to wildlife thanks to its wide capture area, slow motion, alerts, and camera monitors that allow operators to spy any overly-curious marine life…
Slat estimates ten Jennies could clean half the garbage patch in five years, and if 10 Jennies were deployed to the five major ocean gyres, then 90% of all floating plastic could be removed by 2040.” -via Good News Network, 10/19/21
Likes to charge reblogs to FUCKING cast
She saw her moment and got glossed up for it
It’s October! You know what that means... 🎃 (via kxvo)
I found a VHS tape at the junk store, labeled just “A Surprise!”. Since I’d recently set up my VCR and old 80s TV, I thought I should check it out.
Just… just watch.
Kabul has fallen, Afghanistan is almost completely under Taliban rule now, and President Ashraf Ghani has fled. I wasn't alive during the Vietnam war, but having seen the images of Saigon at the end of it, it's impossible not to think of them when seeing the footage of Chinooks airlifting US embassy workers to Kabul airport. l cannot tell you how surreal it is to be watching the news from neighboring Pakistan, sitting next to my grandfather who has been alive for every change of government since the Brits left after the war.
History repeats and repeats and repeats, nobody learns a damn thing, and innocent civilians are the ones that suffer.
250 000 Afghans have left their homes. Many more are going to do so. And that's just the ones who flee. Those who don't will live under a conservative rule that is going to commit crimes against humanity on a daily basis, that is going to ruin the lives of generations to come.
The worst part is, I don't know what else there is to be done at this point. I can only pray that my country will accommodate the incoming refugees, though I fear they won't.
All I ask is that international community keep Afghanistan in their thoughts, and that everyone raises their voice against what is happening, both in terms of what the Taliban is doing, and how the actions of foreign powers led us to this point. The US, the UK, Pakistan, are all at fault, and must be held accountable
Have A Nice Day!