PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Plastic pollution in rivers and oceans is a major concern for natural habitats, marine animals and human beings. The contamination is caused by products ranging from food packaging to prostheses and construction pipes. As these materials break down, their debris progressively accumulate on remote shorelines, sea surfaces and even the deep ocean. They smother the seabed inhibiting gas exchanges with overlying waters, leach out harmful chemicals and can be ingested by plants and animals, passing durable microscopic contaminants to organisms higher up the food chain. Removing these “plastic soups” from vast water bodies is challenging. One solution to prevent plastic waste from building up in oceans is to catch it in the rivers that are considered as the main pathway for transport of land-based plastic waste to the oceans.
OBJECTIVES
The LIFE SouPLess project's objective was to demonstrate three new systems for riverine plastic removal: 1/ a passive system using a helical coil that channels currents to guide litter towards a filtering barrier; 2/ an active system that blows a constant curtain of bubbles underwater, hindering the passage of litter and contaminants; 3/ an active system using a pump and filtering module in addition to the bubble curtain, to also halt the spread of microplastics in water bodies and help remove them from natural ecosystems.
RESULTS
As foreseen, the project developed three different plastic catchers. However, rather than to demonstrate 1 passive and 2 active systems, a passive plastic catcher system able to collect micro- and macro-plastics at the water surface and in the water column has been developed. This modular system is suitable for different locations (canal, harbour, tidal area, low to high currents) and types of geographies and weather conditions.
During the project’s lifetime, 3 different plastic catchers were successfully demonstrated at 3 different locations:
- harbour environment with wind-driven litter: Patje Plastic in Antwerpen-Doeldoek;
- creek on the river, with tide, wind and current: Catchy 1 in Nieuwe Maas/Vifjsluizerhaven;
- mainstream of a river: Catchy 2 in Nieuwe Maas/Rotterdam-Erasmusbrug.
In addition, a plastic catcher suitable for marinas was developed. Catchy Mini was implemented at the Marina in Terschelling.
Furthermore, the project developed software to predict plastic hotspots, to support the choice of a strategically good location for a plastic catcher.
The quantities of plastics collected with these plastic catchers are much lower than expected, mainly due to the pollution in the targeted rivers being less significant than anticipated. Despite this, the demonstration of the plastic catchers was successful. The plastic pollution at the demonstration sites has significantly decreased and tracer tests indicate that an important part of the plastic litter has been captured.
The qualitative environmental benefits (protection of birds and marine life from plastic waste) outweigh the environmental impact when constructing the plastic catchers. The positive contribution to the environment was confirmed in the field as significant amounts of macro- and microplastic pieces were being captured and the direct environment of the devices was significantly improved.
Continuation and replication of the project is foreseen on a non-profit basis. The replication strategy foresees the use of locations in several countries in a strategic way: test and scale up the system used in the Netherlands (Pilot phase) in another country (Scale-up phase), before implementing it in a high polluted country (Executive phase).
