Seabin Using Plastics
to Fight Plastics
According to Seabin
Using Plastic to Fight Plastic (2019), Seabin Project states that microplastics
and microfibres are one of the greatest threats to the marine ecosystem. They
collect organic pollutants faster than inorganic particles where marine animals
will mistake them as food and eventually "travel up the food chain"
and "reaching our plates". The article states that microplastics and
microfibres are plastics pieces that are smaller than 5 mm. The Seabin Project
mentions that Seabin Technology captures and removes all surrounding debris and
microplastics. A study was conducted and observed that Seabin was able to
remove finer plastics, of sizes 2 to 5 mm in diameter. A comparison was
conducted with Mantra trawl and a modified Seabin filter. Mantra trawl is the
standard sampling method where a special net is dragged behind a boat. The
article mentions that the physical traits of the samples are near identical and
both are effective in sampling microplastics. As explained in the article, the
reason why Seabin is a preferred method is that it is reliable, time-saving and
inexpensive.
One of the reasons why Seabin is the desired method is because of its
reliability. As mentioned in Seabin Floating trash Collector, One Clarion
states that not only plastic waste is gathered, but also stormwater debris which
comes from the city’s water system are captured and contained as well. It
further explained that by doing so, Seabins assist communities in reducing “their
plastic footprint, clean up public spaces, and contain loose debris”. Most of
the residues that got caught in the catch bags are items like plastic bags, cigarette
butts, fishing gear and many more. These pollutants are causing marine life
to be at risk. In the statistics shown in Plastic Ain’t So Fantastic (2020),
Ocean Crusaders educates us plastics take a long time to degenerate and that close
to a hundred thousand marine animals died due to plastic entanglement and that these
are only the ones found. Who knows that there are more out there in the waters
that have yet to be discovered?
Another reason that makes Seabin a chosen method is because of how
timesaving it is. In the first article, One Clarion also mentions that Seabins
consistently pumps the collected trash-filled water from the water bodies and
filters the water through reusable catch bags continuously all day for the
whole year round if the Seabins are maintained properly by the city. According to
their statistics, these floating bins filters out 3.9 kilograms of debris after
pumping 25 liters of water per hour each day. All the user must do is diligently
change the catch bags full of floating trash to ensure that the Seabins are in
optimal working condition.
Another factor that made Seabin recognizable is how relatively
cheap it is. A mentioned in Marina Enlist Floating Garbage Collector to Clean
Waterways. (2019), Mia Overton states that each Seabin unit costs about $4000
(US), which is quite a reasonable price. Operating all day long at less than $3
a day, it is way better than having human labor to do this job. Profit is not
the aim of this project but to solve this crisis is the main agenda. Hence, Seabin
has been working under a business model since 2015 with “50 percent for profit and
50 percent for non-profit activity” as they believe that education is the key
to overcome this situation.
References:
Seabin
using plastic to fight plastics. (2019). Retrieved from
https://seabinproject.com/seabin-using-plastic-to-fight-plastics/
Seabin Floating
Trash Collector. Retrieved from https://www.clarionmunicipal.com/floating-trash-collector.html
Plastic
Ain’t So Fantastic. (2020). Retrieved from http://oceancrusaders.org/plastic-crusades/plastic-statistics/
Marinas Enlist
Floating Garbage collector to Clean Waterways. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.marinadockage.com/marinas-enlist-floating-garbage-collector-to-clean-waterways/?fbclid=img%20Marinas%20Enlist%20Floating%20Garbage%20Collector%20to%20Clean%20Waterways
No comments:
Post a Comment