The Exchanges

Q Yep. And tell us a little bit about the early challenges. You built some of these systems. This is not an easy thing to do. What were some of the problems with The first ones you created?

A Yeah, it's been a long and painful journey when I, I found this like 10 years ago, so it's been a sort of a 10 year sprint, I would say. And, um, yeah, just lots of trial and error. Of course, something this had never been done before, so we didn't know what would work, what wouldn't work. And, uh, I think the, the biggest mistake that I made was to go Too big, too soon. So back in 2018, you know, of course we had done hundreds of scale model tests, lab tests, et cetera, but, um, then we said, okay, let's just build the full scale thing in one go. It was this big launch in San Francisco, took the thing out. It was, uh, you know, we were in 60 minutes. It was like a, you know, big thing. And, um, you know, then the system didn't collect plastic and it broke into two. So, um, and that was, I think that was like a, Ten million dollar investment just down the drain in a few months.

AI assessment note: “the system didn't collect plastic and broke into two.”

Q So basically, there's, there's a lot of rivers in, in middle-income countries where, where the plastics, I guess the very poor countries don't have very much plastic. The very rich countries are pretty good at, Putting our plastic away in the dump. Uh, so there's not too big of a problem. So tell us about these rivers you're going after. Where are they?

A Great. So we, um, actually when we started, we, uh, there wasn't really any research on where the plastic was, uh, was coming from. So in 2017, we were, um, you know, the first ones to, to publish a, uh, a study to show where the, um, the plastic is, uh, is coming from. And what we found is that just one percent of the world's rivers, uh, do, You know, roughly 80% of all the, um, the plastic emissions. So it's very concentrated, and mostly in, indeed, these, you know, big coastal cities in, in middle-income countries. So, um, places like, you know, Panama City, Guatemala, you know, Lagos, Manila, uh, Mumbai, Jakarta, you know, those are really the, kind of the, the plastic pollution hotspots in the world.

AI assessment note: “places like, you know, Panama City, Guatemala, you know, Lagos, Manila, uh, Mumbai, Jakarta”

Q Why did it break? What would you do wrong?

A So, uh, forgive me for being too technical here, but, um, uh, it was a fatigue fracture, so if you have, like, a paper clip, you move that a lot, then eventually it will break. So it's the same effect. So at this, this big, uh, you know, plastic pipe, essentially, that, um, uh, of course, because of the, the waves, it, Keeps going up and down, and the calculations we did using just a, you know, a clean pipe without anything attached to it, but on the bottom of it, there's this, this skirt going down to catch plastic that's not exactly at the surface, and those attachment points, there were like little notches in between, and essentially that caused a concentration of, um, of stress, where then a crack started to form, and then After three months, it became critical, and we had, we had two cleanup systems rather than one.

AI assessment note: “it was a fatigue fracture, so if you have, like, a paper clip”

Q And that bothered you, but what, what is it about your upbringing you think that made you want to take this entrepreneurial approach to build and fix this?

A Yeah, I, I guess it's, it's always a question about, so what's, um, genetic versus, um, you know, what's, uh, the upbringing. I, I, I do think I've a bit of an innate, um, you know, passion for, for, for things, uh, you know, for, for building things. And, uh, and I guess in my, my childhood, I think one thing that I'm very grateful of to my, to my parents, you know, with my mom, actually my, my, my parents divorced when I was very young. Is that, um, you know, they were definitely not helicopter parents. They gave me a lot of freedom and they definitely supported and enabled me my, my passion. So if I would have, um, you know, an interest in a specific scientific topic, you know, they would buy me the books about that, you know, and, uh, if I, uh, you know, at some point in time I was really into chemistry and, you know, I was building Smoke bombs when I was eight.

AI assessment note: “they were definitely not helicopter parents. They gave me a lot of freedom”

Q And do the governments there care about this? They just don't have enough money to deal with it? Like, do you talk to governments there? What do they say? Yeah.

A I, you know, I think it's, it's very much true that, um, pollution is, um, you know, a problem of poverty. So I think once countries, once people get wealthier, they can afford, it's kind of a luxury to care about more than just your own wellbeing, right? So, uh, I think around the seventies in places like the U S you know, people started to have enough, uh, wealth to, to do that. I think in, um, Um, in other countries, uh, I think they're probably a bit quicker. You know, they do understand that it's an issue. They do face direct economic, um, impacts because of this, right? It damages tourism, damages fisheries. So there's a real selfish interest also just to, to invest in this. Uh, I think the main hurdle is just that, um, it's, it's new, it's different. There's not, there's not a, uh, you know, a certain category of permit for Interceptors, you know, plastic interceptors. So, uh, so I think that's the main issue. It's not a question of, you know, are they unwilling to support? I mean, they're definitely, when we speak to them, they, they get it. It's, it's just the bureaucracy involved to actually get the, you know, the permits. That's usually the main bottom.

AI assessment note: “when we speak to them, they, they get it. It's, it's just the bureaucracy”

Q You wrote in The Economist earlier, actually, that technology is the most potent agent of change. So you're obviously a fan of it. A lot of people do seem to be against technology in general. There's a big degrowth movement in Europe. What do you, what do you think about that?

A Yeah, I'm not on board with that kind of thinking, maybe not surprisingly. Um, I'm, I'm struggled to see sort of the rational case for it. So, and I understand the intuitive appeal for it, right? So if you look at, um, you know, so the macro trends of our civilization over the past few hundred years, you know, everything that comes down to sort of human well-being has been tremendously Positive. So it's been, it truly is the best time yet, uh, for humans to, to live today. You know, I really believe that. Uh, but at the same time, you also see the negative trends in terms of, you know, generally negative in terms of pollution, in terms of, you know, CO in the atmosphere, all these, you know, land use. So I think if you look at that sort of naively, you know, you could make the, um, You know, you could make the observation that these things are sort of orthogonal to each other, that the, um, you know, that civilization is at odds with, you know, a healthy biosphere. But, you know, if you then think about the, sort of, the degrowth movement, they say, okay, we need to consume less, we need to use less energy, but I think the first sort of nail in the coffin there is that, you know, people don't want that, you know. I don't think that, Even degrowthers themselves truly want that. I don't think they would go to their bosses every year and ask for a salary reduction. I think that th…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I'm not on board with that kind of thinking, maybe not surprisingly.”