Coastal touristic cities have already invested time and money to remove trash from their beaches.
We are searching for some efficient and economic methods for collecting trash from the sea to keep it pollution free.
Furthermore, we are interested in knowing if it is more efficient and economical to collect the trash from the beach or at the sea? Does anyone know any study that made the comparison of these two?
Thanks to anyone who can help us or has any advice!
Thank you for your contribution, apparently it seams we have similar items in our toolboxes to tackle the problem (remote sensing). Please contact me directly if you have any experience or ideas on the subject ! Regards
It very much depends on the scale of the beach and the waste stream that feeds to the sea. There probably won't be a single silver bullet solution, rather a combination of effective municipal recycling and waste collection, resort/tourist waste curtailing (e.g. banning of plastic straws and cups, public drinking fountains, etc.), resort-side waste reduction with potential incentives to recognize best practice, beach clean-up and other citizen action.
Clean-ups would still be necessary even if the landward prevention side happens well, because it would likely wash in from other shores, sometimes across from other countries.
By the time trash already gets to the sea it becomes much harder to remove.
Published
by Nuraini Mohamed Arsad, Scientist - Soil & Groundwater at Shell Global Solutions
1 Comment
I totally agree with you : Unlike other skillfull communicants, I don't pretend to solve the plastic waste problem in the world Oceans in one single action !!! I am ambitious but realistic so I want to tackle the problem on a smaller scale (to start with !). I am a coastal oceanographer I think that collecting trash when it arrives in the ocean is more efficient and more realistic than trying to collect microplastiques wandering around the planet. My focus is to increase the efficiency of waste collecting in the sea by using several tools used in other fields of operational oceanography. In order to start serious discussions on this project I wanted to know if anybody had facts and figures concerning the compared efficiency of trash collecting at sea VS trash collecting on the shore. It seems these data are difficult to find or do not exist ! Thank you for your contribution ! please let me know if my project arises more questions.
Our oceans are the victims of pollution. Plastic soup and global pollution must be dealt with internationally
What you can do
Preventing marine pollution is vital for the well-being of the sea, the marine life it supports and us Cleaner oceans mean we can continue to enjoy our beaches for swimming, fishing and recreation.
There’s plenty you can do, either on your own or in a group, to make a huge difference.
1. Organise a beach clean-up.
2. Reduce your rubbish.
3. Make sure only rain goes down the drain. Most drains flow straight to the sea … which means we could end up swimming in anything that goes down them!
4. Take care of a local stream.
5. Find out more about your local beach.
This Floating Screen Could Be the Best New Way to Clean Plastic From the Ocean
If you do have plastic bags, it is best to reuse them as much as possible. They are also great for holding fruit and vegetables – remember to always select fruit and vegetables that are not packaged in plastic.
If you can, always go for environmentally friendly and organic products. They are better for our earth and they use as little plastic as possible.
Don’t chew gum. All chewing gum is made of a synthetic rubber and is actually a type of plastic.
Buy liquid products in cartons rather than in plastic bottles.
Diapers are a major source of waste. It is estimated that 7.6 billion pounds of diaper trash is thrown away annually. Rather use cotton and washable diapers – not only healthier for the environment, but for your budget too.
A troller with fish nets might work. You would have to use floats on the nets to keep them at the surface, but they could cover a large area fairly quickly. The best solution is to keep the trash from getting there in the first place. Many coastal communities haul their trash out to sea and dump it. This practice needs to stop. I remember in the seventies watching the barges in New York City hauling out huge loads of trash to sea. Of course, any floatables would wind right back on the beaches. Land fills are the best solution to this. Our oceans are not a dump.
About the only practical way is physical collection, whether from the beaches or from the sea. This in conjunction with good signage, easy availability of bins, and fines for littering.
The advantages of having beaches on clean seas need not be spelled out. Clean seas are also environmentally positive, and promote healthy marine life.
Most of the trash is usually plastic. Costs can be recovered by having small plastic to diesel plants, for processing the waste plastic, and using the char for black topping of roads. Char reportedly has a 30-year life, so this takes care of another recurring expenditure item, for upkeep of roads.
We have some products that remove pollution (including litter / trash) from Stormwater drainage systems to help control pollution close to the source and prevent it from reaching the sea. You can view these at http://www.hydro-int.com/en-gb/hydro-stormtrain-series. These devices are available in France.
Regards,
Mark
Published
by Mark Goodger, Hydro International - Product Engineer