Plastic Pollution + Tech

#1

Hello Everyone,

Great to be back here!

I am a plastic pollution campaigner and founder of The Thames Project . I “Cycle ON the British Waterways” using my handmade bamboo water bike; picking up plastic thrash. This has been a great conversation starter to talk to people and share with them the dangers of plastic pollution. I am also lobbying councils, canal & river trust, businesses to come up with policies to reduce the amount of plastic in our waterways etc.

This is a little BBC story about my work.

This is a massive task and I need help! I need technology :wink: if anyone of you are passionate about this issue, do give me a shout :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Dhruv

#2

I’m very passionate about it and I have a friend who’s obsessed

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#3

I think I heard there’s a fungus that will eat plastics.

Nearly all plastics can be made biodegradable.

And they must have a forensic chemical signature. I think the producers should pay when their plastic damages people or environment.

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#4

A plastic waste tax based on weight and type?

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#5

So we are talking about producer responsibility etc. There is infact a note “A Packaging Recovery Note” but the core issue is that we neither have a national standard for plastic products nor a standard for recycling. Everyone is playing it the way they want and this is leading to a dead end specially with the latest Chinese National Sword on plastic waste import.

#6

Agreed. We need coherent policy to lobby with. There has been success with this approach in Canadian housing policy I’m told. I’ll get the details

#7

I thought of a geo-tagged photo map of plastic waste spoiling the environment.

We can:

  • visualize/create solutions
  • present the problems in a way that causes a strong reaction (“something must be done”)
  • present our pre-made solutions
#8

Thanks for your comments Robert!

Agreed. Definitely the data collected by the robot needs to be visualised carefully. I am thinking to have two GoPros, one above and one below water surface to track plastic. This can be on the bike and not on the robot yet.

I have created a Google Maps and an ArcGIS map of all the plastic litter pictures when I cycled on the Thames from source to sea - thethamesproject dot org/ the-thames-litter-discovery

Question is, no one cares unless this is something different, something that attracts attention and can trigger a behavioral change. Also, the question is why? the data people claim is useful but the hotspots are already known and we do not have to reinvent the wheel since a few organizations are doing this already. For scientific research, the pictures are never reliable since they are duplicated and also do not track the source of the plastic

Few links you may find useful! (cant post the link for some reason)

  • International:
    Google pokemongolive earthday
    Google 5gyres Trawlshare
    Google litterati
  • National
    Google plasticpatrol and openlittermap

Let us keep on thinking :wink:

#9

I’d like to do that with litter, empty buildings, potholes and other problems.

A recent blue planet episode seemed to make a big difference. I think a well edited video aimed at the right people would make a difference. Everything we do makes a difference. Us talking about it makes a difference.

I did some powerful training recently, mainly in order to bring what I learned to sustainable campaigns. I’m happy to facilitate a workshop in drawing attention and triggering behavioral change?

#10

How about an army of robust, trackable floating robots to detect and grab plastic and place in a net or sack which could then be collected by bigger or flying robots?

#11

Cool cool ! Yes, we need a well edited video for sure. A workshop would be cool, definitely and thank you. Once we have a planned date, we can talk more. May I ask you about some of the sustainable campaigns you have led/ know about? ! The challenge we have is dedicated volunteering time from the volunteers ;( any tips on how to crack this?

Plastic Pickup Army: Would be ideal and we have a long way to go to get there. This robot is not practical yet for full scale rollout. Why not? Plastic Bags get stuck in the propeller causing the robot to become a navigational hazard in a busy working waterway, Maintenance costs to manage these robots in a controlled space. Most of the plastic is hidden under trees/ in the corners between boats/ shallow water which is not accessible to this robot and obviously vandalism and use of robot to thrash other river users…