  Since their invention, plastics have become ubiquitous in modern societies
all around the world, and their impact on the environment has, in recent years,
become nearly as well-known. Plastics produced by humans have reached nearly
every corner of the world, and throughout their centuries-long lifetimes,
plastics continually break down into smaller and smaller particles due to the
physical stresses which they are subjected to. These stresses eventually,
inevitably, break these plastics down into microplastics -pieces of plastic
small enough to be consumed by organisms in bodies of water throughout the
globe. These microplastics can very easily bioaccumulate, and have been found
everywhere from the Great Lakes to the bloodstreams of humans. The effects of
these plastics are poorly understood, however, they have been linked to
infertility, halted growth, and a host of other maladies in aquatic organisms.
Currently, removal of these plastics has been neglected, with no governmental
action to remove them from marine environments, and this project aims to begin
prototyping a solution to this issue. A significant percentage of microplastics
are found at the surface of waterways, thus trawling in surface waters using an
autonomously propelled net is proposed as a way to solve this seemingly
intractable issue. By attaching motors and a guidance system to a manta trawl,
a device currently used for collecting microorganisms, the process of
collecting microplastics in open water can be automated, and thus the work of
removing plastics from the environment on a large scale can begin.
