Summary Analysis Draft #3

The article, ‘Introducing the Seabin Project’, written by Emily Jateff (2018) as a press release for the Australian National Maritime Museum, describes how Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski quit their jobs and started working on an ocean trash collector prototype, called Seabin, as they were ‘tired of swimming in garbage’. According to Jateff, 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 catch-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 was modified to collect ‘micro-fibres’. Jateff 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. Jateff claims that the team is also trying different approaches to making Seabin more environmentally friendly, such as by replacing its electric energy source with solar panels or by making its catch-bags out of recycled materials.

While the idea behind Seabin is both well meaning and well thought out, I feel that it will not be an effective solution for ocean pollution in the long run without trusted partnerships between The Seabin Project and bigger corporations willing to fund it and proper revisions to its design and method.

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’ (Jateff) 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’ (Jateff) 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. However, if revisions are made and finances are secured, the Seabin may very well achieve its goal of decreasing the amount of trash that ends up in the ocean.

References

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