Design Summary and Analysis Draft 1 - Seabin using plastic to fight plastics

The article "Seabin using plastic to fight plastics" (2019) describes the dangers of micro fibers and micro plastic in water bodies and introduces the Seabin technology as a possible method to tackle this problem by elaborating on its functions and discussing future improvements.

Micro plastics and micro fibers are a big issue concerning aquatic life as well as humanity itself. These "organic pollutants", which measure up to 5mm in diameter, are digested by aquatic life, which in turn gets digested by humanity. The Seabin technology functions by trapping water and filtering out the trash. The article states that with the addition of sensors implanted onto the Seabin, observations can be made on the amount of mirco plastics and micro fibers lying in open waters. With further improvements done to the Seabin Project, such trash in our open waters will be reduced drastically.

One of the many reasons why the Seabin technology is more popular than other methods of collecting garbage in the seas is that the functions of the Seabin allow it to work at a higher efficiency than other methods of cleaning our waters.

One such function of the Seabin is the feature for collecting micro plastics. The Seabin is able to remove micro plastics from water sources thanks to its catch bag being able to collect trash larger than 2mm in size. When compared to another method of collecting trash, the Interceptor made by Boyan Slat, which collects the trash in rivers, the Seabin is would be a better choice due to this feature which the Interceptor does not have as it focuses more on collecting general waste in large amounts instead. Thus, while the rivers would look cleaner thanks to the Interceptor, micro plastics would still be able to make its way to the ocean where marine life may digest these micro plastics, mistaking it as their food. This would end up affecting us humans as we digest these marine lives.

Another feature that the Seabin has compared to others is the sensors attached to its body. With these sensors installed, the Seabin can act as a “scientific monitoring tool” that gathers information on the amount of micro plastic in our waters. With this technology, the Seabin is able to keep track of this information while at the same time collecting trash from our waters. One other method that does much information collection is the manta trawl method. The manta trawl is a net system used to take in information regarding the ocean skin. The information taken in is the number of plastic pieces in the ocean along with the plankton species. However, all the manta trawl does is gather information and not the trash itself. This is where the Seabin would excel in since it is able to do both the collection of information and trash.

However, the Seabin is not all and mighty, it does come with a few design flaws. One of the most noticeable flaws it has would be the amount of trash the Seabin is able to collect. According to their homepage, the Seabin roughly captures around 3612.8kg each day. Comparing this to the Interceptor made by Boyan Slat, it is able to extract 50000kg each day. This is a huge difference when comparing the two methods. As the Seabin focuses on collecting micro plastics, it has to be very precise in its collection and thus loses out on gathering speed, reducing the amount of trash it is able to collect. Even so, the Seabin in my regard does not lose out to the Interceptor as micro plastics are a danger to our oceans as we can hardly see these with our naked eyes. One day when the Interceptor finally cleans up the ocean, what about the micro plastics it was unable to collect and everyone thinks the ocean is clean as the micro plastics cannot be seen? This is why even though the Seabin has its flaws, it is still a much needed method of clearing out the trash in our waters.

In conclusion, the Seabin is not the all mighty solution to cleaning up our waters but it will surely and eventually do so with more improvements to be made on the project.

Reference
Seabin Project. (2019.) Seabin using plastic to fight plastics. Retrieved and adapted fromhttps://seabinproject.com/seabin-using-plastic-to-fight-plastics/

The Ocean Clean Up. (2019) River. Retrieved and adapted from

https://theoceancleanup.com/
Manta Trawl (2019)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manta_trawl