Permanent garbage collector in Kingston Harbour, Jamaica

#Jamaica #The Ocean cleanup #plastic garbage

The Benioff Ocean Initiative has awarded The Ocean Cleanup foundation one million US dollar to deploy one of its garbage collectors in Kingston Harbour, Jamaica.

The Interceptor is one of the four collectors that The Ocean Cleanup has built to test their advanced technology to prevent plastic waste in rivers ending up in oceans.

Founder and director Boyan Slat of The Ocean Cleanup on Interceptor 001 in Jakarta.

Founder and director Boyan Slat of The Ocean Cleanup on Interceptor #002 in Malaysia. (photo: The Ocean Cleanup)

Polluted waterways

According to The Ocean Cleanup the Hunts Bay, which pours into Kingston Harbour, is Jamaica’s most polluted waterway, responsible for an estimated 578,000 kg of plastic flowing into the ocean each year.

The installment of the Interceptor will be in collaboration with Recycling Partners Jamaica who will help drive behavioural changes that are needed to sustain the efforts and will also operate the Interceptor, ensuring the environmental friendly disposal of all collected plastics and materials.

Interceptor #004 upon arrival in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. (photo: The Ocean Cleanup)

Second collector in the Caribbean

The Interceptor in Jamaica will be the second collector to be operational in the Caribbean. In February the foundation shipped its Interceptor #004 to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Two other Interceptors are operational in river mouths in South East Asia, respectively #001 in Jakarta’s Chenkareng drain and #002 in Malaysia’s Klang river.

Eventually the foundation wants to have 1,000 Interceptors operational around the world at the mouth of the world’s most polluted rivers.

Nine river garbage projects

Benioff Ocean Initiative, based at UC Santa Barbara’s Marine Science Institute, merges science and technology to improve ocean health. The initiative was brought to life in 2016 to bridge marine science, technology, and the ocean community to solve problems such as reducing collisions between ships and whales, and reducing plastic waste to end up in oceans.

Nine teams are now working on projects to collect garbage from rivers in India, Thailand, Vietnam, Ecuador, Mexico, Kenya, Indonesia and Panama. The ninth team supports The Ocean Cleanup with its Interceptor to become operational in Jamaica.