From the mind of Boyan Slat, inventor of The Ocean Cleanup project, comes a new idea designed to clean rivers and intercept plastic waste before it reaches the oceans.

His previous ambitous effort, The Ocean Cleanup project, is now successfully running off the coast of California after years of tinkering and perfecting. Its aim is to extract plastic waste that has accumulated over the years in the Pacific Ocean.

Now Boyan is set to launch a new system, “Interceptors“, designed specifically intercept the plastic at the source before it enters the oceans, where the great the majority of marine pollutants (around 80%) come from.

“To truly rid the oceans of plastic, we need to both clean up the legacy and close the tap, preventing more plastic from reaching the oceans in the first place… combining our ocean cleanup technology with the Interceptor, the solutions now exist to address both sides of the equation,” said Slat.

Interceptors consist of floating barriers attached to processing plants that resemble barges and are anchored to the river bed. The barriers funnel plastic waste into the mouth of the plant, which is powered by solar panels and operates without the need for human operators.

According to the The Ocean Cleanup, each Interceptor can extract 50,000 kilograms of trash from a river each day, going up to 100,000 kilograms “under optimised conditions”.

Source: Deezen