Danish Robot Collects Tons of River Waste in Demonstration
All In On Green has announced that its robot waste collector, SeaProtectorOne, collected more than 100,000 pieces of waste from a river in Denmark over the course of 20 months.
Installed at the mouth of the river in Aarhus, Denmark, where the river flows into the harbor and wider sea, the robot collects waste such as plastic cups, face masks and pizza boxes before it can pollute the sea. At the same time, the robot allows boats and other marine vessels to pass by.
The company said SeaProtectorOne could also limit sea pollution from rivers in at least 70 other cities in Europe.
“After the trial period, we were surprised at just how effective the robot was and by how much waste – especially plastic – it removed,” said Kim Gulvad Svendsen, COO of Aarhus Municipality. “This is plastic that will no longer end up in our marine environment. So the robot supports Aarhus Municipality’s sustainability efforts and above all, the U.N.’s global sustainable development goal No. 14: Life Below Water.”
The company said the amount of plastic waste that ends up in the oceans is equivalent to the weight of 57,000 blue whales (according to the Environmental Science periodical). “Once waste enters the sea it spreads quickly and is difficult to collect,” said Peter Grønkjær, professor of marine biology at the Aarhus University. “Whereas the current in a river allows for the systematic filtering of waste in a limited area without disturbing fish or birds.”
“In an ideal world, every citizen everywhere would learn to always put waste into a waste bin,” said Mads Tranders Nielsen, who invented SeaProtectorOne for All In On Green. “But we don’t live in an ideal world. The idea for the robot came to me when I saw huge amounts of waste floating in a river in Melbourne. SeaProtectorOne has now shown its worth, even in Aarhus, one of Europe’s greenest cities. So I’m looking forward to bringing this technology to the rest of the world for the benefit of the marine environment, fish and birds.”
For more details on the robot, visit the All In On Green website here.
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