Summary Analysis Draft #4
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, eight million tonnes of waste, mostly plastic, is washed out to sea each year 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 without proper revisions
to its design and method.
One of Seabin’s biggest problems is its mechanical design. As
stated in the above-mentioned article, Seabin essentially functions as a ‘large
pool skimmer’ (Jateff, 2018) with the vortex it uses to pull trash in located
just below the surface of the water. As pointed out by Soissons, 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. This may be
a huge problem in the long run as if this flaw is not remedied, this solution
may be rendered almost pointless in the future.
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,
2018) 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, Helinski et al.
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 Seabin Project team advises that the Seabin be cleaned out twice a
day (Seabin Project, 2021). 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 by Gunter et al., 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, Lam & Law state that
crowd funders, especially those that don’t offer anything in return, rely on
the donors ’altruistic motivation or sense of belonging’. 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 to the design of Seabin 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. 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. ScienceDirect, 165(0025-326X) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X21001296
Jateff, E. (2018). Introducing the Seabin Project. 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. ScienceDirect, 60(1364-0321), 11-20 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032116000769
Seabin Project (2021). Frequently Asked Questions.
https://seabinproject.com/the-seabin-v5/faqs/
Soissons, M. (2017). The Seabin: Innovative genius or
(Sea)bin there, done that? https://motherofallcontention.blogspot.com/2017/11/a-plasticky-situation-contrary-to.html
Thank you for the revised draft.
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