Boyan Slat made waves when he was just a teenager with an audacious dream to rid the world’s oceans of plastic waste.
Slat’s first TEDx Talk went viral in 2012, as the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup described his detailed plan for tackling the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — and ocean pollution in general.
In his most recent TED Talk, he shared the organization’s progress and predicted that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch would be cleaned up in five years’ time.
With a proven method of cleaning huge gyres of trash in the oceans, the nonprofit has pivoted to the next step in the process: Stopping pollution from even reaching the ocean in the first place.
While robust laws and practices around waste removal and recycling are paramount to keep any trash from entering waterways, first, The Ocean Cleanup needs to take care of the garbage that’s already there.
And they’re starting with rivers.
To study the plastic pollution entering the ocean from rivers and other waterways, The Ocean Cleanup attached AI cameras to bridges. By measuring the flow of trash in dozens of rivers around the world, they created the first global model to predict where plastic is entering oceans.
“We discovered: Just 1% of the world’s rivers are responsible for about 80% of the plastic entering our oceans,” Slat said in his 2025 TED Talk, which will be published online in the coming months.
His team found that coastal cities in middle-income countries were primarily responsible, as people living in these areas have enough wealth to buy things packaged in plastic, but governments can’t afford robust waste management infrastructure.
The Ocean Cleanup now tackles those 1% of rivers to capture the plastic before it reaches the oceans.
“It’s not a replacement for the slow but important work that’s being done to fix a broken system upstream,” Slat said. “But we believe that tackling this 1% of rivers provides us with the only way to rapidly close the gap.”
To do this, Slat and his collaborators use trash “Interceptors,” garbage-eating machines that collect trash in rivers using solar power and mobile monitoring systems.
Interceptors have already been implemented in eight countries worldwide and target the rivers that bring the most trash into our oceans, which Slat said could stop “up to one-third of all the plastic entering our oceans.”
The group recently announced its latest collaboration in Central America, stopping the flow of waste into the Bay of Panama.
Working with a local nonprofit partner, Marea Verde, the project is called the “Seven Basins Project,” or “Siete Cuencas,” and will work to significantly reduce the waste that reaches the ocean from the capital’s seven major urban rivers.
These include Rio Curundu, Canal de Panama, Rio Matasnillo, Rio Abajo, Rio Matias Hernandez, Rio Juan Diaz, Rio Tocumen, and Rio Cabra.
First, they will start by installing their first Interceptor in Rio Abajo, with future deployments planned shortly thereafter.
Marea Verde has been working in Panama since 2017 to mitigate solid waste pollution in rivers and coasts, specifically the Bay of Panama.
The Bay of Panama is a marine ecosystem recognized as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, making these efforts paramount to fighting pollution in waters worldwide.
“We feel excited and confident that we will be able to transform the Bay of Panama with the Seven Basins Project,” Mirei de Heras, the co-founder and president of Marea Verde, said in a statement.
“Our previous experience, the support of our donors and allies, and the technology and expertise of The Ocean Cleanup will allow us to generate a real impact in the fight against plastic pollution in our rivers and seas.”
The Bay of Panama is also an area of rich biodiversity and ecological value. It is home to mangroves and critical ecosystems, as well as local communities that have been heavily impacted by waste pollution.
By combining local experience with the technical authority of The Ocean Cleanup, the Interceptors aim to “comprehensively stop the flow of waste, contributing to the recovery of coastal and marine ecosystems,” a press release states.
The effort to address waste at the source will also include environmental education programs promoting cultural changes in waste management among local authorities and communities.
The Ocean Cleanup first launched its Interceptor program in rivers in November 2019 and has since removed over 21 million kilograms (or about 46.3 million pounds) of trash through these interventions.
Adopting a city-wide approach in an area as large as Panama aims to drastically improve waste management in the region, while also having ripple effects on all global waterways.
“Our mission is to rid the world’s oceans of plastic pollution and the key to achieving this is stopping pollution at its source: the rivers,” Slat said in a statement.
“Through strategic Interceptor technology planning, monitoring and research initiatives, and our alliance with Marea Verde, we can combine our proven technology and expertise with their local experience to deliver a lasting legacy in Panama.”
Local authorities are eager to see the impact.
“You can count on the full support of the government to clean these seven rivers,” Panama’s Minister of Environment, Juan Carlos Navarro, said in a public gathering celebrating the launch of the project.
“It’s a very ambitious project,” de Heras added. “We believe that we can collect up to 800 tons of trash in all seven rivers of the Siete Cuencas project.”
With support from local leadership, Slat is ready to get things done.
He concluded: “By implementing a more holistic approach to the problem of plastic pollution across city basins we can scale our impact and carry out our vital, collaborative work with greater efficiency to achieve our aims quicker and smarter.”
Header image courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup
