Plastic bottles, bags, cigarette butts and all manner of other rubbish will be sucked out of the sea by a floating bin which has been installed in British waters this week.
Two Australian surfers, Pete Ceglinski and Andrew Turton, have spent years developing their solution to cleaner seas and oceans, and on Wednesday, Portsmouth harbour became the first in Britain to install one of their Seabins.
The amazing piece of environmentally-friendly tech has the capacity to hold up to 1.5kg of junk and sea pollutants a day, with a full capacity of 12kg and the ability to collect the equivalent of 20,000 bottles or 83,000 bags every year.
PixabayThat’s saving a hell of a lot of sea turtles and dolphins!
The Seabin is able to collect floating debris, as small as 2mm, which has gathered on the surface of waters in harbours and ports, and can suck in oil to protect the marine life that lives on our coast.
It works by creating a flow of water passing into the bin and bringing with it, all the floating rubbish and debris, which is then caught in the bag and the clean water redistributed into the marina.
Seabins will officially go on sale in early November and will cost around £3,000 ($3,957).
Pete and Andrew hope to install them nationwide in conjunction with local businesses and yacht clubs.
The creators were inspired to create this eco-friendly cost-effective solution when they realised the man-powered boats which collected rubbish were not effective, they were incredibly time-consuming and also expensive.
They were able to prototype their invention with the help of thousands of donors via IndieGoGo, having raised $267,567 since January 2016.
Seabin ProjectAndrew and Pete said:
We are excited to introduce our new invention helping to solve, educate and prevent our oceans pollution problems. The Seabin is a revolution in ocean cleaning technology – it will help create cleaner oceans with healthier marine life.
The Seabin project is helping create a better way of life for everyone and every living thing – the marinas, ports and yacht clubs are the perfect place to start helping clean our oceans.
There are no huge open ocean swells or storms inside the marinas, it’s a relatively controlled environment.
GeographThey continued:
By working with these marinas, ports and yacht clubs we can locate the seabin in the perfect place and mother nature brings us the rubbish to catch it.
Sure we cant catch everything right now but its a really positive start. It’s a big mission, but it can be done. In fact, we’re doing it right now.
PixabayMeanwhile, at the Conservative Conference in Manchester earlier this month, Environment Secretary Michael Gove proposed plans to see British shoppers pay up to 6p for every plastic, metal and glass bottle they return to shops under government plans to boost recycling.
In Australia and Denmark, where such schemes exist, up to nine in ten bottles are recycled – currently in Britain, only half of our bottles are recycled.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.