When I started there was this consensus that you could never clean this up, that the problem is way too big, the ocean is way too rough, the issue of bycatch - 'plastic is too big, plastic is too small.'

The concentration of plastic is rapidly increasing in the gyres. Even if you were to close off the tap, and no more plastic entered the ocean, that plastic would stay there, probably for hundreds of years.

We're starting with the North Pacific gyre simply because it is the largest accumulation of plastic.

Boyan Slat Quotes