Meet the team using bubbles to keep Amsterdam's rivers clean

SCENES shines a highlight on youth world wide which can be breaking down boundaries and creating change. The character-driven brief movies will encourage and amaze, as these younger change-makers inform their outstanding tales.

Plastic was hailed as a miracle materials that reworked our fashionable lifestyle. Designed by American scientists, pushed by the need to assist remedy all of society's points. Mockingly, a long time later, plastic is a worldwide environmental concern damaging our ecosystem. The issue is extensively recognized. Some persons are doing their bit by reducing plastic waste, utilizing steel straws and choosing reusable groceries baggage.

An environmental ocean safety group within the Netherlands determined to take motion and created The Nice Bubble Barrier. This know-how stops plastic trash earlier than it could attain the ocean.

The Gateway to the Ocean

Anne Marieke Eveleens co-founded The Nice Bubble Barrier in 2019. The idea arose from a shared love of water and a want to guard the setting. "The Nice Bubble Barrier is a system that we place in rivers to forestall plastic that pollutes these rivers from flowing into the ocean," Anne tells Scenes.

Maarten van Rouveroy
Anne Marieke Eveleens, co-founder of the The Nice Bubble Barrier, posing in entrance of the bubble barrier in Katwijk, Netherlands.Maarten van Rouveroy

Her co-founder Philip Ehrhorn expressed his dissatisfaction with the air pollution concern and want for an answer. "I spend lots of time in and across the water. And inevitably, sooner or later, you will see plastic. And when you begin seeing it, you will see it in every single place," explains Philip.

Floor-breaking Expertise

In an effort to halt plastic waste, Philip invented a trash-catching know-how. The workforce developed a system that catches plastic over rivers' fu­ll width and depth.

"The Bubble Barrier system is principally composed of three elements: the barrier curtain itself, the catchment system that collects the plastic, after which the waste compressor," explains Phillip.

Maarten van Rouveroy
The catchment system of the bubble barrier system on the Westerdok in Amsterdam, Netherlands.Maarten van Rouveroy

Whereas this method could seem sophisticated, Anne explains it's a easy idea utilizing air bubbles to filter, lure and take away plastics from waterways.

"Rivers and waterways are just like the highways of plastic air pollution. Many of the plastic within the ocean has travelled via rivers, and that is why we need to cease it proper there," says Anne.

Analysis and Improvement

The Plastic Soup Basis, a non-profit marine conservation organisation, is working with The Nice Bubble Barrier workforce to analysis plastic pollution.

In keeping with Maria Westerbos, the organisation's founder, this analysis is essential to figuring out the supply of ocean air pollution. "If you already know what causes the air pollution, you possibly can act on it and cease it earlier than it enters the water," Maria tells Scenes. 

Shocking finds

The pollution discovered within the ocean are sometimes shocking, even to those that research them. "One instance of a plastic merchandise we generally discover is laminated restaurant menu playing cards," says Philip. 

A much less dangerous various to plastic menu playing cards is paper. Changing plastic with paper could seem unusual from an environmental standpoint, however its influence might be profound.

Maarten van Rouveroy
The bubble barrier at Westerdok in Amsterdam, Netherlands.Maarten van Rouveroy

Typically small plastic particles could cause monumental harm to ocean life. Philip defined to Scenes that his analysis helps inform individuals about contaminants which can be simply avoidable.

Maria at The Plastic Soup Basis estimates that people produce 500 billion kilos of plastic per yr.

Philip explains, "As soon as within the setting, it'll keep there for years, in all probability centuries".

The plastic within the oceans is not only suffocating marine life but in addition impacts people. Current research by the College of Hull discovered microplastics inside human organs and bloodstreams.

Anne explains that this disaster requires quick motion to save lots of our oceans and humanity. "If we do not cease it proper now, we anticipate to have much more plastic within the ocean than fish by 2050," she says. 

A Silver Bullet Answer

Whereas The Bubble Barrier is an progressive, energy-efficient and non-invasive answer, Philip says there isn't a "single silver bullet answer" to resolve this disaster.

"It is going to take years, and it will take greater than a bubble barrier system to resolve the issue," he explains.

Maarten van Rouveroy
Philip Ehrhorn, co-founder of the Nice Bubble Barrier, in entrance of the bubble barrier on the Westerdok in Amsterdam, Netherlands.Maarten van Rouveroy

Subsequent Steps

The Nice Bubble Barrier is a major first step in the direction of confronting ocean plastic air pollution. The workforce is working tirelessly to develop the attain of their know-how. "Our ambition is to roll this out internationally, to begin making extra influence," Philip tells Scenes.

With plans to develop to Portugal, Germany and elements of Asia, the Nice Bubble Barrier workforce hopes to finish plastic air pollution in oceans worldwide, one bubble at a time.

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