Abstract 

We propose to engineer a floater with a net, to combat pollution in the ocean. It moves through the ocean by being pushed by waves, picking up garbage and once its full, a boat that is manned by humans will bring it to a facility where it will be sifted through for trash or any marine life that got into the net. However the floater and net will still have special sensors on it to try and limit and ward off any animals that might get caught in the net. Our location of choice is the North Pacific Ocean, where the Great Pacific Garbage Patch resides, that spans from the North American West cost to Japan.

Introduction

Ocean pollution is one of the major issues in the world that require a solution as soon as possible since it affects the people around us as well as the animal life in and around the body of water. A cleaner ocean will result in massive changes and it will start a chain of positive change for the animals. We have chosen a surface garbage collector with an attached set net towards the back to able to collect waste that roams the ocean’s surface. By attaching a net to the collector, the collector can roam freely through the currents around areas where there are large amounts of waste residue such as the great pacific garbage patch. As it moves around the area, it will collect the floating waste with the net and be transported it to a much more appropriate location such as a recycling plant to be able to use it over again. The goal of this year long project is to lower and or eliminate the issue completely from the ocean all over the world. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of two garbage piles, the Eastern Garbage Patch near California and the Western Garbage Patch near Japan, both of the patches are stuck in the Subtropical Gyre an ocean current in the Pacific. The ocean current attracts more trash into it and entraps it there causing it to rotate counterclockwise through the Pacific ocean. Making it the optimal location for the most amount of debris to be collected because of how much garbage it attracts. Since the majority of the garbage tends to be plastic in which does float the contraption will be able to scoop up all the floating garbage in its path without any issues.

Description

To clean up the garbage we will use a net that is pushed along by currents. The net will be 20 feet long and 200 feet wide . The net will have holes wide enough to allow for small animals to pass through. The plastic ensures that the net will not weaken from being submerged in water for prolonged periods of time. The net will be supported by a floatation device which will be attached to the net itself, as shown in figure 1. This will keep the nets from sinking and will keep the apparatus on the top of the surface where it can catch as much garbage as possible. The floaters are spherical in shape with a 10 foot diameter and are filled with regular air and are attached to the net. There will be 20 for every net and are 5 feet apart. There will be a gps tracking device which will record the position of the device at all times The tracker has a gps antenna which will relay the location information, a sim card which can store the location data for up to 40 days, a circuit board which will regulate power to the whole tracker and a large LED light which will glow green to indicate that the tracker is currently recording position data and red to indicate that the tracker is not currently recording as well as a power LED that glows blue to indicate that the tracker is charged and yellow to show that it there is an issue with the power supply. The battery of the tracker will be connected to solar panels which will power other electronic devices on the apparatus. Since the apparatus is not itself reliant on electricity, the solar panels should provide enough power to make the whole thing self sustaining in terms of power. The solar panel is itself made of a panel composed of silicon crystals, a polymer backing and an aluminium frame.  The power collected by the panel is managed by a solar charge controller. This keeps the battery from becoming overcharged which would damage the whole system. The battery itself is a flooded lead acid battery which will require maintenance such a watering and venting, however this can be done at retrieval which will not inhibit the functionality of the apparatus. The final component will be a sail that can help move the whole net system in the event that the waves themselves are not sufficient. It will be attached to the net system by a wire that is 30 feet in length. The sail itself will be circular and 50 feet in diameter. The mast of the sail will be supported by a platform that will extend from one end of the net system to another. The mast itself will be made out of aluminium and will be 20 feet tall. The sail cloth will be made of traditional cotton canvas drop cloth. The mast will also be secured to the net system by two ropes that extend from the system itself to the top of the mast to help hold it in place.

Figure 1: “Floaters attached to the net” (https://theoceancleanup.com/media-gallery/#&gid=8&pid=3)

Figure 3: Solar Panel

Figure 2: “GPS Locator”

Figure 2.1: GPS “Battery and Antenna”

Figure 4: Solar Charge Controller

Figure 5: Solar Electric Panel

Figure 6: Flooded Lead-Acid Battery

Innovation process

The cost to build one garbage collector will be around $20,000, which will be approximately 200 feet wide. For our goal we are thinking to build 60 of these systems and each of these systems will be equipped with lanterns, radar reflectors, navigational signals, GPS and anti-collision beacons this being the most expensive of all of our components. The system will fully rely on the natural forces of the ocean and do not require an external energy source to catch and concentrate the plastic this will reduce our cost for external energy. All electronics used, such as lights and AIS, are powered by solar energy which will cost $199 in which will be placed on top of the drone to be able to collect power during the day and use that same energy to operate the electronics throughout the time period. Total cost for the 60 collectors is $1,200,000.  The time that it takes to build one of these systems is around 2 months, the time that will take us to achieve those 60 garbage collector units will be approximately 5 years. We count with 30 engineers design, mechanical, project, structural, and more. Our goal is to be able to make 2 collectors at a time, to do so we are thinking to hire more people to increase the margin of production at a much faster rate. Being able to attack this global issue much sooner than anticipated, in our team we count with an office, engineer, project, and operations manager who have a salary of $85,000, chief of staff with a salary of $70,000. Each manager will be in charge of 5 other employees, engineers and others related to their manager field, their salary is an average of $50,000. Managing director’s salary is $100,000, Director of operations $110,000, Communications and External Affairs $40,000, IT support $30,000 and last is our operation officer with a salary of $120,000. Giving a total of $855,000 for the 30 members of our team, we are expecting to get another 30 or 60 new members in order to increase or production power and reach our goal faster.

 The price for the ship shows in the figure 2 is $425,000 this cargo ship will count with 1 captain, 1 navigator and 6 crew members. The captain’s salary will be $90,000, the navigator will be $70,000 and the other 6 crew members $40,000 each member giving a total of $400,000 for the cargo ship crew. Adding all together we get a total of $1,680,000 for our first year, this is without the 60 garbage collectors.     

Figure 2: “File # 14973 – FR” (https://www.oceanmarine.com/detail.cfm?0910%2DTon%2DDWT%2DCargo%2DVessel%2D%2D%2D14973&product_id=14973&category_current=9&category_current_sub=55)

Timeline

In the first five years we are going to remove at least 50% of the Ocean pollution that is located in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. To achieve this we are going to deploy in the first year 12 of our collector systems, followed by another 12 until we finally reach our goal of sending 60 functional collector systems. Which will take us exactly 5 years in order to build the 60 units, this will speed up the process of cleaning the Ocean. The number 1 in the Figure 3 shows the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), this is where the majority of the garbage is located and this will be our main point of focus. The figure 4 shows how the GPGP looks nowadays, all that contamination and garbage that had being accumeling over these years. But if we look at the figure 5 that will be our prediction by 2030, to be more clear by 2040 more than 90% of the garbage located in the GPGP will be clean by our systems. Once we are done with we are thinking to work on our next zones that are marked with numbers in the Figure 3. 

Figure 3: (https://theoceancleanup.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch/)

Figure 4: “Expected Impact” (https://theoceancleanup.com/oceans/) 

Figure 5: “Expected Impact” (https://theoceancleanup.com/oceans/)

Fundraising 

Our plan to fundraise, to be able to make this idea come true is to promote our idea through social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram, etc. To be able to spread our concept to many people at the same time rather than posting posters since nowadays the world is leaning more towards the internet. Furthermore, creating a GoFundMe page to be able to accept any donations people decide to give us. Our idea is to be able to spread our messages to people of all classes, to raise awareness to a global issue that tends to be overlooked. These advertisement ideas will last around 2 years minimum with no real ending because we would need all the help we can from everybody. We will also project our idea to the NOAA( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) which gives grants to help fund projects dedicated to helping the ocean and the marine life around it. We have also reached out to other charities trying to achieve the same goals as us, such as The Plastic Oceans Foundation who try to raise awareness through film and media about how we use plastic in our lives. Another Foundation we have reached out to was the 5 Gyre Institute, who uses scientific research to determine the damage being done to the ecosystem, they have also previously studied the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which could offer our project more insight.

Conclusion

The goal we hope to accomplish is that though our garbage collector we can eliminate or diminish the amount of surface plastic floating in the North Pacific Garbage Patch. We hope to change the overall state of the nearby animals ecosystem though our collector.