We no longer remember how many times we have commented that the Oceans are becoming increasingly polluted. every day we can verify it in the media.
Although technology is making giant strides in trying to stop this ecological disaster (See the perfect plastic made with skins and fish scales), in fact, many projects still need a background of development to be really effective and adopted by society.
Among so many initiatives that we have on the blog, this one is week a project has been presented in Rotterdam that is already working in different rivers of Indonesia giving results really positive, and, of course, a hope for achieve less polluted oceans.
We must remember – according to estimates – that around the 1% of the world's rivers, are responsible for most of the garbage that enters the ocean.
This is the ship called Interceptor that works entirely with renewable energy and is collecting tons of trash plastic that flow through the rivers of Indonesia.
The system was designed by the non-profit organization profit The Ocean Cleanup , which has been last four years developing and testing this new technology while continuing to work on your project main: a device that can capture plastic garbage once it is already in the ocean.
The new technology is designed to be anchored in the bed of a river where the greatest amount of plastic flows, is that is, it uses a large barrier that blocks part of the river to pick up the plastic as it floats and redirect the trash towards the collection system.
The collection is by a conveyor belt that removes the waste from the water and an autonomous system distributes it in different containers located on a barge.
The device is placed where the most amount flows plastic, and other device, can be placed lower than the river to collect the garbage that could escape the first interceptor.
You have to think that the whole ship works automatically and when the system is full and ready to take to a recycler, automatically sends an alert to operators locals to proceed accordingly.
According to the organization, on a typical day, you can remove up to 50,000 kg of plastic garbage from the river ; depending on the amount of plastics, currents and tides. Even reaching in optimal conditions the excellent number of 100,000 kg of garbage.
See also the article on creative recycling projects where plastic can be given a new utility with a little imagination.
In the following video they show us how the boat that cleans rivers of plastic .
Although there are other initiatives of the same importance, they are not reaching the amount of garbage that is capable of processing this project. In addition, it has been designed so that it can produce – replicate easily and thought so that the human being has minimal interaction with the machinery and the different debris collected in the water (We can see more examples of sustainable development policies).
According to the organization, each year, up to 2.4 million metric tons of plastic flow from rivers into the sea . Most of that garbage comes from the rivers in Asia, in cities where recycling infrastructure is often inappropriate.
The organization has an excellent interactive map where can geolocate the most polluting rivers worldwide (We can consult from HERE).
Obviously, this is not the solution, but as long as the Countries and companies try to make changes in the bans on single-use packaging, in an increase in recycling systems that really work or in other initiatives, it is clear, that addressing the problem in the rivers is one part of the short-term solution.
If we want to know more about the Interceptor project and the organization The Ocean Cleanup you can watch from here and we remember that; First you have to consume consistently and later, recycle (Of interest the article on how to recycle garbage)
