A Quote by Boyan Slat

When I was 16 years old, I went scuba diving in Greece and saw more plastic bags than fish. I wondered why we couldn't just clean it up. That rather simple question stuck in my head.
I'll tell you what me scares me is plastic. Plastic bags and plastic bottles and these things. Why does my water have to be in a bloody plastic bottle? The landfill and the ocean. And I don't know, I'm just terrified with the proliferation of plastic.
If I didn't travel so much, maybe my perfect Sunday would be skin diving on a coral reef - not scuba diving, as skin diving is more physical, and I prefer the lightness of it. Skin diving means wearing just goggles. Oh, I could wear some trunks, maybe.
While scuba diving off the British Virgin Islands about 25 years ago, our boat's anchor got stuck. I dived down to release it, but I got separated from the boat and was stranded as it sped away. I had to swim for an hour to the nearest island with all my scuba kit on before I was rescued.
When I was maybe eight or nine years old, I first learned about the climate crisis in school. My teachers taught me about it and we saw films and pictures of plastic in the ocean and extreme weather events. Those pictures were just stuck in my head; I thought, there is no point in anything.
Banning plastic bags so that people use paper bags or imported reusable bags that will end up in local landfills soon thereafter is not the only solution to our plastic bag challenge.
I just don't think most of us are aware how much of what we throw away ends up in the ocean, for starters. Plastic bags are among the worst. The US is actually falling behind the curve on that score. China and many other countries have already banned the production and use of thin plastic bags.
I've been so transient, I've been on my own since I was 16. I didn't even have my own place until I was 32 years old. I literally lived out of bags for 16-plus years.
I had this aunt who had a career and traveled. She'd say things like, "When you go to college, I think we should go scuba diving in the summer. The scuba diving in Portugal is fabulous." And I'd be like, "Portugal! Holy cats!".
There is something very poignant about plastic bags. These lonely plastic bags that gradually disintegrate.
I felt rather exhausted, and wondered, rather shocked at my callous thought, why old people were sometimes such a strain. Worse than young children or puppies because one had to be polite.
I've been painting and drawing fish since I was very young. My mom found old pictures I did when I was around 6 or 7 of all these sharks and scuba diver looking back, a big ship, throwing a harpoon. There was already a message within what I saw.
I want to do things - scuba diving, sky diving, seeing the world. I'm an avid supporter of living life to its fullest and not always waiting for tomorrow.
The young cast that's coming in now, Dylan Sprayberry and Khylin Rhambo, they're great! Dylan Sprayberry came out to surf with me a couple of weeks ago and he's such a good kid and he's a kid! I mean he's 16 years old, and you forget the energy and the dynamics and the mindset of a real 16-year-old. It's just beautiful! It's limitless energy and just a whole different kettle of fish. I think that they're a great addition to the show.
I love scuba diving. I'm an avid diver. And, there's this beautiful world that's more incredible than any CGI film we could ever make, that we're destroying, for what? It's heartbreaking to me.
Maybe we want to keep A.I. to the level of a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old adolescent, rather than some fully maxed-out artificial intelligence that becomes 10,000 times smarter than us in just a matter of years. Who knows what could happen? It could be a very dangerous scenario.
I love scuba diving, and I've been up and down the Amazon.
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