Man Creates Solar-Powered Barge That Picks Up Plastic Before It Even Reaches the Oceans

The Epoch Times

BY LORI C. SUMMERS

In recent times, the organization is aiming to successfully remove plastic from rivers before it reaches the ocean. By the end of 2025, it aims to clean up 1,000 of the globe’s most polluted rivers that happen to be responsible of 80 percent of the plastic that ends up in the oceans.

According to their website, The Ocean Cleanup was founded back in 2013 in the Netherlands. To help the environment and rid the world’s oceans of plastic debris, the non-profit’s most recent invention, the “Interceptor” is designed to collect the garbage from the source, which happens to be the rivers.

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Thanks to @benioffoceaninitiative_ucsb ,The Ocean Cleanup will be able to deploy an Interceptor in Jamaica's most polluting waterway, responsible for an estimated 578,000 kg (roughly the weight of 80 African elephants) of plastic entering the ocean yearly. This is another exciting step in our goal to tackle the 1000 most polluting rivers in the world.

A post shared by The Ocean Cleanup (@theoceancleanup) on May 8, 2020 at 8:02am PDT

The Interceptor is a fully solar-powered device with onboard lithium-ion batteries, which enable it to operate 24 hours a day without any noise or exhaust fumes. It has been in the works since 2015 and was introduced to the public at a Netherlands event in October 2019.

So how does the Interceptor work? The novel system is designed like a catamaran that moves on the surface of rivers and collects the plastic on a conveyor belt before depositing it into the attached waste containers. When the dumpsters are full and need emptying, it sends out an automatic message to the operators on land, who then bring it to the shore to empty the dumpsters and send off the plastic debris to local waste management facilities.

Read the full article at The Epoch Times