Each year, at least 8 million tons of plastics leak into the ocean — which is equivalent to dumping the contents of one garbage truck into the ocean every minute.
Today New Zealand has joined the United Nations-led CleanSeas campaign to rid our oceans of plastic. Minister Sage signed a pledge showing New Zealand’s commitment to the global CleanSeas campaign at the Volvo Ocean Race Village in Auckland. More than 40 other countries have already signed up.
“Turtles and other wildlife are being killed by litter in our oceans. Also the issue of microplastic in our oceans and its effect on the food chain is a concern for all species and is a potential risk to human health. New Zealand is proud to be joining this campaign to stop this from happening,” Ms Sage said.
Professor Tsumoru Shintake of the Okinawa University in Japan intents to develop small turbines that generate electricity from the power of the flowing water.
Professor Shintake: “Using just 1% of the seashore of mainland Japan can [generate] about 10 gigawatts [of energy], which is equivalent to 10 nuclear power plants. That’s huge. It is especially huge in Japan, where nuclear power has a somewhat mixed track record.”
During his diving holliday in Greece, he found more plastic bags than fish. Now he is 21 and CEO of a high-profile company whose mission is to clean up the incredible amount of plastic floating around in the oceans.
This Prototype developed to CleanUp the Oceans, can be a real game changer.
Since today, the first prototype of the ocean cleanup installation is ready to test.
It’s an invention ofBoyan Slat, with which he wants to clean up the plastic debris in the oceans.
Instead of an installation of one hundred kilometers in length, this scale model is a one hundred meters long prototype which is posted for the Dutch coast in the North Sea. Read More
The rubbish bin, designed to float in marinas, inland waterways, residential lakes and harbors, catches floating debris and liquids by sucking water from the surface and letting if flow out through the bottom of the structure, trapping waste in a catch bag.
Do you love your boat? And do you want to clean up the water in the harbor? This is what we have for you. This genius bucket can suck garbage right out of the ocean.
It’s called the SeaBin and it works just like a fish tank filter. Let’s get rid of the plastic soup. Read More
Contrary to the commonly-held belief that plastic takes 500 to 1,000 years to decomposes, researchers now report that the hard plastic polystyrene begins to break down in the ocean within one year, releasing potentially toxic bisphenol A (BPA) and other chemicals into the water…”
Since September 13, 2012, an enormous underwater turbine in Maine’s Cobscook Bay began sending power inland to the Bangor Hydro electrical utility grid. It was a historic moment for clean power: the first commercial-scale, grid-connected tidal energy generator anywhere in the USA. Read More
A recently published paper in Science today details how to create regenerating plastic objects that can self-repair damage that stretches more than an inch across. An object can be damaged over and over and still repair itself without seriously compromising its strength.