Boyan Slat, a young Dutch engineer, has designed a giant machine to filter plastic waste from the ocean, a veritable “Pac-Man” of the seas, this device takes up the challenge of cleaning the ocean of its waste, which is estimated today. the mass at 7 million tonnes!
The Ocean Clean Up company claims to be able to clean half of the plastic vortex of the North Pacific in 5 years, a vortex otherwise known as the “7th continent”. The company plans to reduce this mass by 90% by 2040.
The invention consists of a floating tube with a length of 600 meters and a container 3 meters deep used to collect litter; the waste will then be collected every two months by a ship to then be recycled on land. Powered by wind and waves, this marine scavenger is designed to withstand ocean currents and storms
However, some specialists doubt the cleaning efficiency of the invention, in fact, it cannot collect microparticles, these microscopic residues swallowed by fish and which are so dangerous for their organism; the other negative point expressed by skeptics is that this machine does not distinguish the difference between waste and plankton, while the latter is an essential source of nutrition for aquatic fauna.
The first results of this operation will be known in 2019.
7,891 total views
No comments