There are 5 trillion pieces of plastic floating in our oceans. Plastic pollutes everywhere from the North Pole to 12 km into the deepest parts of the ocean, and the problem is so severe that 92% of all salt brands in the world have plastic contaminants in them.
But plastic has no chance against 12-year-old Haaziq Kazi's indomitable will, and his quest to clean up the world's oceans through a genius invention.
Haaziq Kazi
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From the outside, he seems like a normal kid studying in Pune's Indus International School, but deep down Haaziq's on a serious mission to clean up the world's oceans.
"It started as a project in school when we were asked to do a talk on things we cared about," recalls Haaziq, which was around the time he happened to see some documentaries on the adverse effects of plastic and other waste polluting oceans.
"Then one day when I was washing my hands, I noticed how water flowed into the sinkhole," Haaziq remembers. It's when he observed the swirl of the water vanishing into the drain that he realized he could use the same concept to suck in waste from our oceans.
CERVIS ship design
And that's how ERVIS was born, a futuristic-ship with saucers attached, that can 1) clean waste matter floating on the ocean surface, 2) analyze the waste collected, and 3) stop waste at source, prevent it from getting disposed by ships.
Haaziq further states that he worked with scientists and 3D designers to come up with a more "bleeding edge" model of the current design of ERVIS.
"The ship is essentially a large boat powered by hydrogen and renewable natural gas with various compartments and saucers surrounding it," claims 12-year-old Haaziq Kazi.
ERVIS ship design
The saucers, float on the surface gravitate to create a whirlpool to pull the waste towards its center. These saucers will have a central outlet which will swallow the waste and is connected via a tube to various chambers in the ship. These chambers include an oil chamber which collects waste oil. There are four more chambers which are for large, medium, small & micro waste respectively.
Haaziq helps us conceptualize the whole thing. "Imagine, Ervis to be a gigantic vacuum cleaner with many cleaning tubes attached to many dust bags. Once the waste enters the chambers, Ervis analyzes, segregates and compacts it, and pumps the filtered water back into the ocean, without harming any marine life in the process," he says. Easy peasy, right?
ERVIS has different chambers to store the segregated waste and it also has an oil chamber to collect waste oil. Based on the type of plastic it collects, ERVIS compacts and stores it. Once waste is collected and analyzed, it's then sent back to land for recycling.
Haaziq Kazi
Counting Elon Musk as one of his inspirations, 12-year-old Haaziq Kazi says that cleaning the ocean pollution is a massive challenge. Roughly 1 million birds are dying annually from plastic ingestion and about 66% of all fish caught across the world have ingested plastic in some way or another.
"I believe ignorance is the biggest threat to our planet today," says Haaziq Kazi. "We live in a world where every single one of us is contributing towards the detriment of the planet. I feel if we are conscious and juidicious in the choices we make, the earth will be a much better place for all of us to stay in and when I say all of us I don't mean just humans but animals, plants, water, air, the ecosystem which makes the wonderful planet we stay in," he explains, showing us a glimpse into the dreamy innocence of a 12-year-old, a change-maker wiser beyond his age.
When I ask Haaziq Kazi about his ceaseless drive and determination, he lets me in on a secret. "There are two kinds of people in the world," Kazi tells me, remembering what his father told him once not too long ago, "The ones who create problems and the ones who solve them."
Haaziq Kazi
"My advice for wannabe innovators is to be in the latter category, and believe they have what it takes to solve the biggest of the problems which are out there," says the inspirational 12-year-old.
As Haaziq Kazi prepares to speak at TEDxGateway December 2018 as a young innovator, I definitely know that he's a problem solver through and through. And thanks to young change-makers like him, we still have a fighting chance to solve our plastic pollution problem.