Social Good: The Seabin Project for Cleaner Oceans

‘The Seabin Project, cleaning our oceans one marina at a time.’

“I was a product designer in another life, and it was my job to make plastic products. After a while, I realized that we didn’t need the stuff that I was making… and so I stopped.” Pete Ceglinski loves to surf and be out in the water, but he’d find himself surrounded by plastic. He met Andrew Turton and learned of his idea he created in his heart ten years ago, seeing the ocean pollution as a sailor and a surfer, much like Ceglinski- and it made sense.

The Seabin is an automated rubbish bin that catches floating rubbish, oil, fuel and detergents. It designed and best suited for floating docks in the water of marinas, private pontoons, inland waterways, residential lakes, harbours, water ways, ports and yacht clubs; it could even be attached to motor yachts.

It is currently designed for marinas and the similar environments to start close to the source and in a relatively controlled area. There are no large or frequent open ocean swells or storms in marinas, yet wind and currents still pass through, bringing in pollution caught in their directions.

The Seabin is situated at the waters surface and is plumbed into a shore based water pump on the dock. The water gets sucked into the Seabin bringing all floating debris and floating liquids into it, with the water then flowing out through the bottom of the bin and up into the pump on the dock.

The water then flows through the pump where there is the option of installing an oil/water separator and clean water then flows back into the ocean. The process will be constant- operating twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty five days a year.

The catch-bag inside the Seabin is 100% biodegradable

Inside the Seabin there is a natural fiber “catch bag” which collects all the floating debris. When this is full or near to full, the marina worker simply changes the catch bag with another one. The collected debris is surveyed and then disposed of responsibly, the catch bag cleaned and now it is ready to be used again.

Currently the Seabin is powered by using 220vlt shore power, but solar pumps are being considered amongst other options to find the most energy efficient and clean source.

The Seabin needs our help to fund this incredible step towards a larger, brighter movement in cleaning our oceans. Their kickstarter and proper details can be found and read HERE, with rewards for your support. Please feel free to spread the word.