Plans for the new Ocean Saviour, a 230-foot, $52 million eco-yacht that is designed to collect plastic from the ocean and then power itself by recycling that waste into fuel, were just unveiled in Southampton, UK. The boat will have two booms on either side that will funnel floating pollution into a conveyer. The plastic then will be chopped into tiny pieces, milled and processed onboard to power the boat.
The high-tech process on Ocean Saviour will destroy ocean waste completely with “minimal atmospheric pollution,” according to its designers. The yacht can scoop up five tons of plastic pollution a day and will become the first vessel ever to power itself by recycling ocean waste into fuel.
The boat has been described as “the combine harvester of the seas.” It will be deployed first in the Pacific.
Ricky Smith, a naval architect who specializes in creating eco-friendly vessels, designed Ocean Saviour. “This is a crusade for the liberation of our oceans from the waste created by both our brilliant technology and our disregard of the oceans,” he said.
The British government estimates that there are 50 million tons of plastic in the world’s oceans now, an amount that could reach 150 million tons by 2025. More than five trillion pieces of plastic currently litter the ocean, according to government reports. Read more:
