Did You See This?

A Trash Can for the Sea

The Seabin aims to clean up the ocean

The video above is from a just-funded Indiegogo campaign for the manufacturing and production of the Seabin—a cool new invention designed to get down to the dirty business of cleaning up our oceans.

Despite its big ambitions, the Seabin is an ingeniously simple device: It’s a bucket whose rim floats at water level, allowing sea water laced with rubbish, oil, and detergents continually to spill into it. A pump at the bottom of the device  returns the now-clean water to the ocean while trash continues to collect inside the Seabin. As for cleaning, the process is as simple as emptying the natural fibre trash bag that hangs inside.

With only a finite number of these devices are being deployed, the venture faces an uphill battle given the vast amount of trash littering the world’s oceans. However, with much of that trash coming from ports, marinas, and yacht clubs, the company hopes that placing Seabins at these locations will attack the problem at the source. Additionally, these areas aren’t subject to the massive swells and destructive storm conditions of the open sea. It’s not a comprehensive solution, but a smart, admirable first step.

As an added bonus, the good folks at Seabin  have long-term aspirations of manufacturing future Seabins using the discarded plastic captured by their devices.