Summary Analysis Draft #2
The article, ‘Introducing the Seabin Project’ (2018), written by the Australian National Maritime Museum, talks about how Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski quit their jobs and started working on an ocean garbage collector prototype, called Seabin, as they were ‘tired of swimming in garbage’. According to the article, plastic contributes to a significant amount of ocean pollution and Seabin may be able to combat this. Seabin uses a motor to create a whirlpool which sucks garbage into a bag within the bin, filtering out the trash, before the clean water is pumped back out. Oil absorbent pads have also been attached to the bin to clean the water of petroleum based products and recently, the catch-bag within the bin was modified to collect ‘micro-fibres’. The article also mentions that the bin needs to be placed carefully as even in ideal weather conditions, Seabin can only pull in garbage from a 2 to 6 mile radius. The article claims that the team is trying different approaches to make Seabin more environmentally friendly, such as replacing its electric energy source with solar panels or making its catch-bags out of recycled materials.
While the idea behind Seabin is both well meaning and well
thought out, I feel that without proper revisions to the Seabin’s design and
trusted partnerships with bigger corporations willing to fund it, the Seabin
will not be an effective solution for ocean pollution in the long run.
One of Seabin’s biggest problems is its overall approach. As
stated in the above mentioned article, Seabin essentially functions as a ‘large
pool skimmer’ with the vortex it uses to pull trash in located just below the
surface of the water. As pointed out in the blog post, ‘The Seabin: Innovative
genius or (Sea)bin there, done that?’ (2017), the problem with this is that,
although floating debris can easily be pulled into the whirlpool, heavier, less
buoyant garbage will be well outside its reach, which will result in large
amounts of trash ending up in the ocean anyway.
Another problem Seabin faces is its size. Although it was
made for small scale rivers, aiming to capture trash at ‘its most common
source’ before it can reach the ocean, the overall range of its vortex is not
very large to begin with, and even then it only has such a reach in ideal
weather conditions. Weather near oceanic bodies tends to fluctuate and this can
hamper Seabin’s overall performance. In addition to that, the article, ‘Ridding
our rivers of plastic: A framework for plastic pollution capture device
selection’ (2021), states that because of A Seabin’s smaller holding capacity
compared to other plastic pollution capture devices, its contents need to be
cleaned out more often; the official website for the project advises that the
Seabin be cleaned out twice a day. Specialized teams may have to be deployed
constantly just to keep the bins from overflowing, which is highly impractical.
Finally, an additional problem faced by Seabin is it’s
crowdfunding. As stated in ‘Pollution of our Oceans- The Seabin’ (n.d.), the
Seabin project ‘relied heavily on crowdfunding’. Though recently it started a
partnership with the port of Montenegro, this partnership seems to be focused
on spreading awareness for the project rather than actually funding it. Furthermore,
the article ‘Crowdfunding for renewable and sustainable energy project: An
exploratory case study approach’, states that crowd funders, especially those
that don’t offer anything in return, rely on the donors ’altruistic motivation
or sense of belonging’ and how, because of this, it cannot be considered a
concrete source of income as these motivations may weaken overtime. Without
collaborations with bigger corporations that are willing to offer steady
funding, the project may be doomed to fail.
In conclusion, I feel that the current model and approach
has too many flaws to be an effective way to curb the flow of ocean garbage.
Gunter, J., Short, C., Stearman, J., & Guler, E. Pollution
in our Oceans-The Seabin. Retrieved from http://blogs.longwood.edu/shortctechnicalwritingportfolio/files/2017/05/WhitePaper.pdf
Helinski, O., Poor, C., Wolfand, J. (2021). Ridding our
rivers of plastic: A framework for plastic pollution capture device selection.
Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X21001296
Jateff, E. (2018). Introducing the Seabin Project.
Retrieved from https://www.sea.museum/2018/06/08/introducing-the-seabin-project
Lam, P., Law, A. (2016). Crowdfunding for renewable and
sustainable energy projects: An exploratory case study approach. Retrieved
from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032116000769
Soissons, M. (2017). The Seabin: Innovative genius or
(Sea)bin there, done that? Retrieved from https://motherofallcontention.blogspot.com/2017/11/a-plasticky-situation-contrary-to.html
Comments
Post a Comment