Ocean Cleanup unveils solar-powered trap to capture plastic waste in rivers

Rotterdam-based Ocean Cleanup has unveiled a solar-powered trap, just days after reporting a breakthrough in trapping plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean using the ocean’s current, that similarly extracts plastic waste from rivers.

Founded in 2013 by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat, the non-profit organisation now employs over 80 engineers, researchers, scientists and computational modelers. Its team are determined to place long, floating arms into the ocean to catch plastic in their nets.

Ocean Cleanup stated that it had “succeeded in developing a self-contained system to passively concentrate plastic” just two days before it unveiled The Interceptor.

Jakarta, Indonesia and Klang, Malaysia are already using the interceptors, and there are plans to deploy another two to Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. There has also been a great deal of interest in The Interceptor from Thailand, while negotiations for a Los Angeles project are nearing completion.

Jean Michel Gauthier of AkzoNobel, which was involved in the design of both the river and ocean systems, commented, “Technical teams from both parties are continuing to work closely together to develop coatings solutions for the ocean cleaning systems, which are still in the prototype phase.”

Ocean Cleanup believes that the 1,000 most polluted rivers account for 80% of ocean plastic pollution. The Interceptor is the first scalable solution to trap river plastics, and can extract at least 50,000 kilos of waste per day.

Slat stated, “To truly rid the oceans of plastic, we need to both clean up the legacy and close the tap, preventing more plastic from reaching the oceans in the first place.”

For more information, visit Ocean Cleanup. Sign up to our newsletter to get the best of Yachting Pages delivered direct to your inbox every month.

Source: IBI News