It’s estimated that at least 8 million tons of plastic waste ends up in our oceans each year, and more than 5 trillion pieces of microplastics are currently contaminating the marine ecosystems. Governments around the world have started to curb plastic production with new initiatives and scientists everywhere are working on finding sustainable alternatives to plastic products. However, there is still an urgent need to rid the oceans of plastic. That’s what inspired a Dutch technology company to design the WasteShark – an electric vehicle that traverses waterways and autonomously gathers up to 132 pounds of plastic waste at a time. If deployed five days a week, it can remove 15.6 tons of plastic waste from a body of water per year. The plastic-collecting has recently been deployed to clean up plastic waste off the coast of Devon in the United Kingdom, some of the country’s most incredible coastlines and marine life. Considering the increasing need for innovative solutions to the plastic problem, the WasteShark represents a useful tool for ridding waterways of harmful plastics.
This autonomous robot can collect up to 132 pounds of floating debris at a time
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