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Rising Tides of Waste Spark Quests to Divert, Repurpose It

When the global public discourse turns to packaging these days, the focus increasingly is on its afterlife as a component of marine waste.

Ben Miyares

Recently, the discourse has turned from handwringing to solution finding, as the following initiatives indicate.

Ocean CleanUp Interceptorβ„’ 002Ocean CleanUp Interceptorβ„’ 002The Klang river in Selangor, Malaysia is a strange place to find a conveyor working to pull waste out of the river into the maw of a Dutch NGO’s solar-powered catamaran that drops the conveyed detritus into six dumpsters snuggled between the craft’s twin hulls. It’s even stranger when you consider this effort was launched with the ambitious purpose of stopping the flow of marine plastic waste (MPW) from flowing into the seas in just five years. Moored near the mouth of Klang river, the Ocean CleanUp Interceptorβ„’ 002 is one of what will eventually be a floating fleet of river scows planning to β€œturn off the tap” of MPW flowing from river watersheds into the world’s oceans. β€œWorking together with government leaders and private corporations, our goal is to tackle these 1000 most polluting rivers, all over the world, by 2025,” says Boyan Slat, CEO/founder of The Ocean Cleanup.

Mr. Trash WheelMr. Trash WheelHalf-way around the world, a family of conveyor-equipped, solar- and water wheel-powered cartoonish crafts (Mr. Trash Wheel, Professor Trash Wheel, and Captain Trash Wheel) are going about the serious business of cleaning up marine waste in and around the inner harbor of Baltimore, Maryland.

In Amsterdam, The Netherlands, an NGO startup called The Great Bubble Barrier is mitigating the flow of marine plastic waste by blowing air bubbles out of a hose laid down across the floor of the Westerdok canal. A rising curtain of air bubbles strung diagonally across the current of the Westerdok carries discarded plastic containers and other lightweight waste up into a catchment basin, preventing the waste from entering the North Sea.

BP is building a $25 million β€œenhanced recycling technology” pilot plant in Naperville, IL, to transform black food trays, colored PET bottles and other tough-to-recycle PET items, into recycled feedstock meant to be interchangeable with virgin feedstocks. If all goes as planned, BP will begin commercial production of its Infinia recycled feedstock in about a year. β€œWe see our Infinia technology as a game-changer for the recycling of PET plastics. It is an important stepping-stone in enabling a stronger circular economy in the polyester industry and helping to reduce unmanaged plastic waste,” says Tufan Erginbilgic, BP’s Downstream chief executive.

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