He Was Seeing It up Close and Personal - and It Was Figuratively Killing Him

Santa Cruz sailing captain Jim Holm was disgusted with what he was seeing in the oceans he loved. Although the images of strewn plastic in the ocean are becoming more widespread on the Internet these days, with animals dying from ingesting it, he was seeing it up close and personal – and it was figuratively killing him. According to this article in National Geographic, it may be literally killing all of us as chemicals from disolved plastics enter the lower levels of the food chain and move upwards. Three years ago he started working on a plan to clean up the piles of plastic waste, some as large as Texas with pieces of plastic dating back to the second World War. He assembled a team in Santa Cruz and began a company called The Clean Oceans Project, with the goal of building ships equipped with new processors that can turn plastic into petroleum right at sea, using the petroleum to power the engines and then selling it onshore. Wednesday they gave a demonstration of the technology and took questions from scientists, reporters and possible investors. "The ocean is my life," said Holm. "That's it. In Santa Cruz this is our backyard, our claim to fame." To get to the point of creating a startup, Holm put sailing on hold and used savings to fund the past three years of creating a company that could both clean up disgusting plastic waste and produce a cheap energy source. The project sounded fantastic at first, but Holm found help from all kinds of companies. Mountain View's CODAR Ocean Sensors has a radar-like product that can track ocean currents and find the giant gyres, or pockets of ocean waste, which manage to clump together in currents. ENergy distributes a system that can make petroleum from plastic for 24 cents a gallon. In Africa the system has been used to turn mountains of used mosquito netting into fuel. The Navy tried the system to run engines with plastic waste off of its big ships – waste that for years was simply dumped into the ocean. There are positive studies of the new technology showing it can be a valuable source of fuel and keep plastics out of landfills, such as this one in Waste Management World. Holm put together a team, including co-founder Nick Drobac, a project manager in the construction industry with a J.D. in law from Santa Clara University and a love for the oceans. The company made its presentation Wednesday evening at the offices of Ecology Action, in the old Sentinel building in the hope of enticing investors, volunteers and supporters. Holm shared his inspiration, a quote he thinks was from hockey player Bobby Hull: "I missed every shot I never took." "I decided to take a shot," said Holm. Source: santacruz.patch.com