Summary Analysis Draft #1
The article, ‘Introducing the Seabin Project’ (2018), talks about how, as of the day of the article’s publishment, a Seabin was to be installed alongside the Australian National Maritime Museum. The Seabin project was conceptualized when, tired of ‘swimming in garbage’, Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski quit their jobs and started working on an ocean garbage collector prototype called Seabin. According to the article, plastic contributes to a significant amount of ocean pollution and Seabin may help reduce this. Seabin uses a motor to create a whirlpool which sucks garbage into a bag within the bin. Clean water is pumped back out. Oil absorbent pads 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, 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 overall, the current model and approach has too many
flaws to be an effective way to curb the flow of ocean garbage.
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, 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.
Jateff, E. (2018). Introducing the Seabin Project. Retrieved
from https://www.sea.museum/2018/06/08/introducing-the-seabin-project
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
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
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
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
As I mentioned earlier, there are many strengths to this essay. I look forward to seeing draft #2 and discussing that tomorrow. One thing to take note of now is some minor blemishes on the reference list.
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