Take a Cool Guess—The Fun Quiz on Renewable Energy. Today’s Topic: Removing Garbage Plastic from Our Oceans
Question: How many tons of plastic now litter our ocean waters, killing fish and other aquatic animals?
Answer: Can be found at Clean Energy Answers.
Relevance: We’ve all seen plenty of concepts that address the collection and removal of ocean plastic, most of which use motorized devices that move through the water. Here’s a new take on this; it’s stationary, and relies on the steady, predictable ocean currents to bring the waste plastic to the device.
Some plastic waste has come from unexpected sources. Manufacturers of exfoliating soaps and body washes include small particles of plastic in the products to act as mild abrasives. Some toothpastes also contain plastic particles. Whether that has yet been made illegal I don’t know, but apparently it is a significant part of the problem. One would suppose that fine sawdust could be used instead; it is completely biodegradable.
Now that the problem is well known, it would make more sense to keep plastic from getting into oceans than to be continually removing it.