下载 "Can this massive invention save our oceans? - Behind the News"

A massive project is now underway to start cleaning up the Pacific Ocean. A giant tube is being towed out to a giant patch of garbage where around 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic have gathered together. This 600-metre-long tube is a device with a very special mission to catch the ocean's rubbish, or at least some of it. It's being towed out to a part of the Pacific Ocean known as the Great Garbage Patch. The water currents here happen to make lots of plastic rubbish drift together, and I mean lots. An area almost the size of Queensland. Until now, it's been too difficult, too big, and too expensive to do much about it. That was until this guy came along, Boyan Slat. This snake thing was his idea, and it all started when he was still at school. For a school project he designed a system of floating barriers that would be up to 100 kilometres long. They’d sit in the path of ocean currents, in a v-shape, to capture and funnel any floating plastic. Then these giant towers would suck it all up. We've spent a lot of time telling you about plastic pollution on BTN. But finding solutions hasn't been easy, and with so much plastic already in our oceans, killing our marine life, Boyan and his organisation, Ocean Cleanup, are hopeful they can tackle the problem one giant snake at a time. It’s aiming to trap some of the 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic that scientists estimate are swirling around here while still letting marine life safely swim beneath it. It's fitted with solar powered lights, cameras, sensors and satellite antennas. And the design will make it easy for boats to fish out the collected plastic every few months and transport it to dry land where it will be recycled. Boyan is now 24, and despite the years of work that've gone in to this, he says the system will still get more tweaks in the coming months. The hope is to take it even further, by letting 60 of these giant snakes loose on the Pacific Ocean by 2020. That's a lot of hungry snakes who surely won't be going hungry. But hopefully they do at some point. _ For the past 50 years, Behind the News has been helping to break down current issues and events for young people all around the world. The program is a high-energy, fun way for people to learn about the stories we see in the news, while providing background information that isn’t usually given by other news bulletins. We have over 1000 stories on all sorts of topics - everything from politics & volcanoes, to online security & fortnite. If you're looking for help to understand something, you'll probably find it on BTN. Make sure to like & subscribe our videos if you want to stay in the know! Visit our website: http://www.abc.net.au/btn/ Follow us on Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abcbtn Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthenews/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/behindthenews