This column has more than once mentioned 21-year old Dutch inventor and entrepreneur Boyan Slat (pictured inset), who, starting as a teenager made it his mission to clean up the plastic debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (www.theoceancleanup.com). The latest design for a device to use the ocean currents to do just that is finally undergoing a sensor-monitored test, according to The Guardian (http://tinyurl.com/boyanboom).

In June, a 328-foot long clean-up boom/barrier made of vulcanized rubber, affectionately named Boomy McBoomface, was towed 12 miles out to sea off the coast of The Netherlands. Anchored via a cable sub-system at depths of up 14,000 feet, the boom harnesses ocean currents to trap floating trash so boats can collect it. Boomy is pictured, courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup.

The money to fund this project was largely raised by Slat himself, but a portion of the funding came directly from the Dutch government to demonstrate their faith in him and in his invention. And, if this current experiment is successful, a sea-trial will take place off the Japanese coast in 2017.

“The key objective of these tests is to see if we can build something that can survive at sea for years if not decades,” Slat told The Guardian.“We want to test the efficiency of the system, understand its behavior, and see what damage it suffers over time from abrasion or fatigue.”

When the testing is completed, the end goal is the deployment of a 62-mile version of the boom in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2020. Just in time, it would seem. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation predicts that unless drastic action is taken, there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050.

— Elleda Wilson