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| The model on display was the fourth to be built and is due to be sent to the Dominican Republic (AFP Photo/Robin UTRECHT) |
The Hague (AFP) - A Dutch non-profit group committed to ridding the world's waters of plastic, Saturday unveiled their latest invention, a floating garbage-collection barge called "The Interceptor".
It is built
by The Ocean Cleanup, who say it will "close the tap" on the greatest
source of garbage reaching the oceans: rivers.
The barge,
which will be anchored in polluted rivers, is capable of scooping up to 50
tonnes of garbage per day floating downstream, said its inventor, 25-year-old
Boyan Slat.
"Under
the right conditions we think it could even achieve double that," said
Slat, who is the CEO and founder of The Ocean Cleanup.
"The
Interceptor" resembles a large houseboat attached to a curved barrier. It
is 24 metres (78 feet) long, solar-driven, fully autonomous and able to collect
plastic in rivers around the clock, Slat said.
Placed at
strategic positions in a river system, its barrier directs plastic to the
waiting "mouth" of the barge, from where it rolls up a conveyor belt
and is dumped into one of six dumpsters.
The barge
has a capacity to carry 50 cubic metres of waste plastic, the equivalent of
271,000 Rubik's cubes, said Slat.
Once full,
an onboard computer sends a message to local operators to pull out the
dumpsters and empty them "as easily as you would clean your vacuum,"
Slat said at the unveiling of the machine.
The project
will tackle 1,000 of the most polluting rivers in the world "within five
years", which contribute to 80 percent of global plastic pollution, he
added.
Two of the
machines are already up and running: one in Jakarta, Indonesia, and another in
Malaysia. A third is being prepared for deployment in Vietnam.
Slat used a
fourth Interceptor for the presentation in the port city of Rotterdam's harbour
on Saturday. This one will be sent to the Dominican Republic, he said.
Earlier
this month, The Ocean Cleanup announced that a special ship designed to clean
the world's oceans had harvested its first plastic from the Great Pacific
Garbage Patch.
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The
Interceptor at work in Malaysia. Photo: The Ocean CleanUp
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Photo: The Ocean Cleanup
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