Approximately twelve million tonnes of plastic ends up in the sea every year. There are many proposals and projects to reduce this litter and a slightly smaller variant comes from the Dutch company Ran Marine, reports Euronews.
The company has designed a 61,8 inches wide floating drone which they named Wasteshark. It can roam in urban environments such as harbors, rivers, and watercourses which flow through cities. It collects plastic and other debris, but also parts of algae and dead plants that are floating around.
When it has filled its 42-gallon tank, it empties the tank into a hold and then returns to cleanse the water of debris. In this way, it stops plastic from reaching the oceans, and at the same time, the water in the cities both becomes cleaner and looks nicer.
Capturing the plastic near the places where it is released into the water has clear benefits.
– Once the plastic ends up in the sea, it becomes very difficult to collect it because it shatters. It becomes smaller and smaller, and is difficult to pick up from a large sea. So we would much rather be able to collect the garbage near beaches where it is both easier and cheaper to pick it up, says Nancy Wallace, responsible for the fight against sea debris in the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in a comment to Euronews.
Kent Olofsson
Kent Olofsson
