Slat Chance

“The team had given Slat’s invention a name, Wilson, for the volleyball that Tom Hanks, lost at sea, befriends in Cast Away. Slat held a brief press conference, concluding, ‘For sixty years, mankind has been putting plastic into the oceans. From this day onward, we’re taking it back out again.’ The ferry set off, and a few minutes later Wilson came into view, gliding behind the Maersk ship like a long black tail. It was already speckled with bird droppings.” In The New Yorker, Carolyn Kormann shares a fascinating look at how a controversial entrepreneur named Boyan Slat is trying to rid the ocean of plastic trash. A Grand Plan to Clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.