Just came across this article on a remarkable piece of kit for cleaning up the oceans. It looks encouraging.

Kudos to the surfer dudes that invented it!

P.S. Go all the way to the bottom of the article to watch the 2 minute video. It’s worth it.

another angle:

Great can they upscale to the size of the Clyde estuary catchment which takes plastic from entire east coast of the USA/canada – and I reckon they must get some scottish fishing nets in return. Is there access for a JCB and wagons to take to landfill?

Looks good. I hope it catches on. I wonder if it will pick up tiny pieces like those plastic microbeads that are still used in some cosmetics made by irresponsible manufacturers.
The amount of plastic in the environment is scary.

I like it, although it does raise a few questions (excuse me if I’ve missed the answers to these):

– Does it only catch waste that is floating on, or near, the surface?
– What happens to critters floating on the surface? Will they get sucked in?
– Does the water/oil separation process remove any “good” things from the water, such as krill, plankton or other tiny organisms that are needed?
– What is the “catchment” area of these things and how many are needed for a given area?

Great idea.

Looks good. I hope it catches on. I wonder if it will pick up tiny pieces like those plastic microbeads that are still used in some cosmetics made by irresponsible manufacturers.
The amount of plastic in the environment is scary.

They’ve actually started to do something about them now. The US has now banned their use:

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/30/health/obama-bans-microbeads/

It’ll be a simple centrifugal seperator methinks, anything lighter than the water (and insoluble) will be thrown out. Either that or candle filters.

And yeah, it’ll only draw in what it can suck so anything on or damn near on the surface. Luckily that’s your plastics and sanitary items mostly covered.

The trouble is there is an awful lot of garbage below the surface, up to 10m below, which won’t be touched by that. Still, it will have it’s uses as a start.

Like shipping containers 😛

It definitely won’t collect shipping containers