The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is just one of a number of pollution disasters affecting the world’s oceans. All over the globe, huge amounts of plastic enter waterways every day, causing havoc in delicate ecosystems.
Heading up the charge to deal with the problem, The Ocean Cleanup have been working on a variety of projects to help clean up plastic pollution. Chief among these is their river cleanup efforts, aiming to stop plastic pollution from reaching the ocean in the first place. The non-profit group intends to rapidly scale up its efforts, partnering with Finnish industrial manufacturer Konecranes in order to put its latest river cleaning design into series production.
We last reported on the group’s efforts in 2020, with their Interceptor craft operating in rivers in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Dominican Republic. They’ve since refined the design for better functionality and easier deployment. Let’s jump in and see what they’ve learned and how their hunt for plastic pollution is shaping up.
A Gargantuan Task
One of the first Interceptors in action. River plastic is collected into dumpsters on board which are then emptied for processing on land.
The Ocean Cleanup was founded in 2013, aiming to find a solution to clean up plastic pollution in the open ocean. However, in years, since the group’s focus has shifted to other areas as well, as modelling has shown that stemming plastic flows from the world’s rivers can be more effective than capturing it once it’s in the ocean itself.
The Interceptors use floating barriers to allow river flows to guide plastics into the capture machinery.
Much focus has been placed ..
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