A cleanup for one of earth's most polluted cities
The Ocean Cleanup is gearing up to intercept plastic from the rivers of Mumbai – one of the largest and most polluted cities in the world.
In the ten years since Dutch teen inventor Boyan Slat founded The Ocean Cleanup, his fleet of ocean and river craft have become a plastic-extracting phenomenon.
Now The Ocean Cleanup is preparing to tackle plastic from the rivers of one of the largest and most polluted cities in the world – Mumbai – in collaboration with a local non-profit, Bharat Clean Rivers Foundation.
In its mission to rid the world's seas of plastic, The Ocean Cleanup says it's also necessary to stop the influx of waste leaking into the oceans from rivers. This is based on its own research showing that plastic emissions from rivers comprise the main source of ocean plastic pollution.
“Our oceans, and Mumbai itself, each require action now: it is essential to begin understanding and addressing this environmental crisis immediately," The Ocean Cleanup says.
Cleaning up the river system will also benefit the millions of residents and communities living and working around the waterways, it adds.
"A plastic crisis of this scale cannot be solved by any one organisation – everyone must come together to find a range of complementary solutions to this complex problem"
The two organisations have signed a ten-year pact that will see The Ocean Cleanup blend its plastic interception technology and research with Bharat Clean Rivers Foundation’s expertise as a local facilitator, fundraiser and project manager.
"Local ownership and operation are key to this city-centric approach, and this will be core to any collaboration in India," The Ocean Cleanup says.
“A plastic crisis of this scale cannot be solved by any one organisation – everyone must come together to find a range of complementary solutions to this complex problem.”
As one of the most highly populated cities in the world, Mumbai has over 20 million residents and a growing plastic pollution problem that overflows into the Indian Ocean via the rivers located in or around the city.
The Ocean Cleanup says it will initially provide research assistance for studies on rivers across Mumbai to identify sources of waste and pinpoint prospective locations for intervention.
“We have seen through our successful work in the Jamaican capital city of Kingston that river pollution in coastal cities can be solved through a data-based and community-centered approach – with local, regional, and global benefits,” the organisation says.
The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organisation that has developed technologies to clean up plastic pollution spanning millions of square kilometres. For over ten years, it has been researching, extracting, and monitoring plastic pollution in oceans and rivers globally – with millions of kilograms removed to date. Its ocean cleanup solution is designed to concentrate the plastic into a long U-shaped barrier which allows it to collect and remove vast quantities. For rivers, it has a family of technology solutions that include barriers, barricades, intercepting and extraction vessels.
