Proposal for Solving Water Pollution in “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”
Liana Hasan, Chau Le, Amanda Rampersad, Israel Osorio, Jason Avila, Saskia John
The City College of New York
April 1, 2019
Summary
The following is a design proposal for a boat called WALL-O, which would be a filtering device that can be attached onto boats to filter out the ocean’s water from microplastics and larger debris. It would be able to tag and locate dense areas of garbage in the ocean and filter this garbage out of the water. The ship will be manually operated and once full, it will be brought back to shore to properly dispose of the garbage.
Introduction
Industrialization gave way to countless innovations and progressions, but one major regression was the equally massive increase of pollution that goes hand and hand with modern day society. That pollution is not contained to landmasses, with a substantial amount of it going into the oceans. And while there has been recent movements to decrease the amount of waste going into oceans, steps need to be taken to remedy the existing pollution.
The ongoing pollution of our water bodies has become a pressing concern for many in society today. Pollution can come in many forms, with one of the more well known forms being plastic waste. “The United Nations Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.” (Facts and Figures on Marine Pollution) This debris results “in the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals”(Facts and Figures on Marine Pollution), and while plastics are a more tangible form of pollution, “excessive nutrients from sewage outfalls and agricultural runoff account for approximately 80% of marine pollution globally, and contribute to low oxygen (hypoxic) areas known as dead zones where most marine life cannot survive, resulting in the collapse of some ecosystems.” (Facts and Figures on Marine Pollution)
The discovery of a substantial patch of plastic debris floating in the pacific served as wake-up call for an ongoing problem that was predicted to happen by oceanographers and climatologists alike. Despite the common conception that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an island of piles of plastic, most of this patch consists of microplastic, small plastic particles that breaks off larger plastic items (National Geographic). We propose the implementation of WALL-O, a new filtering element that will steadily help reduce the amount of microplastics, as well as larger debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, utilizing the boats that cross it every day. We in Project: WALL-O expects to reduce the amount of microplastic in the Pacific Patch by 25% in about 2.5 years.
Proposed Program
There needs to be a way to locate, collect and bring these large amounts of garbage back to shore where the garbage can be recycled. The crew members aboard the boats using WALL-O will be tasked with tagging the garbage in order to rack where it is accumulating. WALL-O would have one net at the front to filter out and collect larger debris and a secondary filter behind the first that would act similarly to a filter that would be placed on a faucet or in a fish tank, filtering out smaller debris and microplastics. The boat would be manually operated by a crew. Once the boat is full it would go back to the shore, where the waste would be taken care of correctly by a separate party.
Innovation Process
List of materials:
- Durable plastic resistant to breaking down in salt water
- Specialized Micronic filter
- Steel fishing wire
- Electric motor to force water through the micronic filter
- Waterproof insulated wiring
- Fine mesh net
- Heat-treated aluminum brackets to hold all components together
Project: WALL-O in collaboration with AQUEO will be utilizing their factories to produce WALL-O. Our device WALL-O begins with a fine mesh net that will catch larger plastics and garbage debris. Proceeding that will be the micronic filter casing of WALL-O, that will be constructed of durable Plastic that could be easily recycled once it is put out of commission. Inside this plastic casing is where the micronic filter will be located in using an electric motor to provide a strong vacuum to force the ocean water through the filtering element. This motor will be powered by the ships generator. WALL-O will be pulled by two steel fishing strings, due to their strength and durability. The strings pulling WALL-O can be attached to the back of the ship on a location deemed appropriate by the ship crew. The production costs of WALL-O will be estimated to $4,000 a piece.
| The Production Cost of WALL-O | $4,000 a device |
| Fine Mesh Net | $300 per net |
| Steel Fishing Wires | $700 each |
| Micron Filter | $1,500 per filter |
| Electric Motor | $1,000 |
| Plastic casing | $100 |
| Misc. Items | $400 |
Appendices
Task schedule
| Task | Time |
| Gather all the materials to build the WALL-O | Month 1, 2 |
| Build and install the WALL-O into the boat | Month 3, 4, 5, 6 |
| Ensure it is capable of withstanding different stages of weather. | Month 7 |
| Test it out in a small polluted lake of water. | Month 8 |
| Full launch of “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” | Month 9 |
References
Facts and figures on marine pollution. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/ioc-oceans/focus-areas/rio-20-ocean/blueprint-for-the-future-we-want/marine-pollution/facts-and-figures-on-marine-pollution/
National Geographic Society. “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” National Geographic Society, 9 Oct. 2012, www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/.
