By: Ajay Vangara
Our oceans are constantly being used as a massive waste dump where millions of plastics, oils, fuels, and other harmful pollutants are being deposited each year, and it is indisputable that the effect on plants and animals in our beautiful oceans is devastating. Dozens of recycling programs and beach cleanups have sprung up, intending to stop pollution, but they barely dented it. Not all hope is lost however, for a new product, the Seabin is being developed, and it could be the solution to pollution.
So… What is The Seabin Project?
The Seabin is an automatic trash collector that helps clean up plastics in oceans. It was created by the Seabin project as a way to clean up docks. The machine floats right on the surface where it pumps water through its filter and can pick up plastics and other pollutants. The company claims the Seabin is estimated to collect up to 3.9 kilograms of pollutants each day which would help the oceans enormously, and its popularity is constantly growing. Since its founding in 2015, the Seabin project has made 860 Seabins to date and has collected over 2 million kilograms of pollutants so far. The Seabin is made up of a filter bag, a basket, and a water pump. As the Seabin floats, the water pump uses electricity to pump water through the filter which catches the harmful pollutants in the ocean. After the water is filtered out, the water is sent through the basket and then pumped out back into the ocean. The process is simple and quick, which is why it's such an amazing invention.
Challenges for The Seabin.
Unfortunately, however, the Seabin does have some limitations that keep it from realizing its full potential. First off, the Seabin needs electricity to operate. This limits the range of the Seabin to places near the coast and not in the gyres where they are urgently needed. However, the makers of the Seabin have said that soon Seabin would be allowed to operate from solar panels or water energy. This could mean that we have Seabin out in the sea collecting trash by 2025. There still is one other problem though: maintenance. The Seabin basket has to be cleaned regularly to avoid clogs and Seabin malfunctions, teams will have to go out and fix them. With the Seabin functioning miles and miles off the coast, running an operation that can maintain the Seabin would be near to impossible. But it wouldn’t be completely impossible. Trackers would help a lot so that they could show where Seabin are. Malfunction reporting devices could show when the Seabin is malfunctioning. Boat trips could even be perfectly timed to help maintain the trash picker-uppers. Though this approach is expensive, it is a valid way to clean up our oceans.
Benefits of the Seabin
The Seabin Project could bring tons of benefits to the ecosystem. It's already clear that the hundreds of beach cleanups across the world aren’t saving wildlife. So far, the most popular way to combat oceanic pollution is to not pollute in the first place, but plastic that’s already floating in the gyres in the vast ocean is impossible to recover. The damage has already been done, and the only way to reverse that damage is to pick up the plastic from the oceans. This is where The Seabin Project comes in. This is the first time where we can directly reverse the pollution in our oceans, which could be a game-changer in the fight to save our fish.
Is The Seabin the Solution?
No. The Seabin won’t solve the ocean pollution problem, and here’s why. If the Seabin became a success it would be able to pick up millions of tons of pollution in a year, and for a short time that massive amount of plastic would finally be out of our Oceans! But… where would it go then? Sure, you can try to recycle it, but there's so much plastic that we probably won’t find enough uses for it. Not only that, but humans produce plastic constantly every year, and more and more plastic will build up in society. Eventually, more plastic will just come back into the water, kill more fish, and the Seabin would finally find it and pick it up only for even more plastic to come into the ocean and kill more fish. The true, and only way of solving pollution is to stop polluting at all. Seabin might reduce the problem, but can't solve it. That problem is completely on us and our actions. So now is the time, to resist the urge to litter, and revive our dying oceans.
Sources
“The Seabin V5 – The Seabin Project - for Cleaner Oceans.” Seabin, seabinproject.com/the-seabin-v5/.
“How Seabin Is Helping Clean the Oceans of Plastic Waste.” My ITU, www.itu.int/en/myitu/News/2020/05/07/09/29/How-Seabin-is-helping-clean-the-oceans-of-plastic-waste.
“Floating Seabin Collects Ocean Waste.” Global Opportunity Explorer, 7 May 2019, goexplorer.org/floating-seabin-collects-ocean-waste/.
“Ocean Pollution: 11 Facts You Need to Know.” Ocean Pollution - 11 Facts You Need to Know, www.conservation.org/stories/ocean-pollution-11-facts-you-need-to-know.