Seabin: When technology can help the sea
Who has never swum past floating waste with their hand? The most loyal and sensitive brought him back to shore and threw him in the nearest bin. What if the trash can is not on the beach but in the sea? It is not the delirium of the writer but it is reality.
THE IDEA. There is a device called “Seabin“ capable of collecting waste that accidentally arrives at sea. The idea comes from two Australian surfers, Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski , who in 2016 launched a crowdfunding campaign to create this basket which, immersed in water and connected to an electric pump, creates a flow to attract floating waste to the collector. The collected waste ends up in a bag made of natural fibers and finally a separator cleans the water that will be returned to the sea.
Considering that, as we have already explained, 570,000 tons of plastic end up in the sea in the Mediterranean Sea alone every year, the idea of the two Australian surfers can represent a small and indispensable help to clean up the sea. The bin has been designed to be placed near floating docks, marinas, private docks, waterways, residential lakes, waterways and yacht clubs. But it can also be mounted directly on a yacht.
Seabin, in fact, is an economical and low-maintenance system that is proposed as an alternative to waste collection boats. One of the goals of the project is to collect enough plastic from the oceans to be recycled to build more Seabins.
HOW DOES THAT WORK? It is a simple and intuitive system. Seabin is placed in the water and is attached to a floating dock. An electric pump that creates a stream that draws floating waste or oil stains into the container. The latter are collected in a bag of natural fiber and the water is instead filtered and released into the sea. And the Seabin doesn’t go on vacation because this process runs 24/7, 365 days a year.
THE SOLUTION: Marine Litter, as is now known, is a very serious problem that (unfortunately) is not addressed by developing a global strategy but each country puts in place its own methods to at least try to stem this very serious phenomenon.
In Italy, for example, the examination of the “SalvaMare” will begin on September 23 (Maybe!!) in the Chamber of Deputies which, among other things, would facilitate the collection of marine litter by fishermen who currently cannot transport the waste that accidentally ends up in the nets because they are currently subject to a fine for illegal waste trafficking.
