Solutions for fighting pollution in the oceans

The new overview study is the first to document the bulk of existing solutions -- technologies as well as methods -- regarding the prevention, monitoring, and cleanup with an innovative approach. With a view to the future, Nikoleta Bellou and together with an international team, namely Camilo A. Arrieta-Giron, João Canning-Clode, Chiara Gambardella, Konstantinos Karantzalos, Stephanie Kemna, Carsten Lemmen and João Monteiro, categorized and analyzed solutions from around the world. Led by Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, co-authors participants included the National Research Council of Italy, the Marine Environmental Sciences Centre, the National Technical University of Athens, the Smithsonian Institution, and Maritime Robotics.

Exploring all categories

The team looked at all categories and examined everything from crowdfunding projects to research databases. The scientists studied close to 200 solutions that plan to utilize drones, robots, conveyor belts, nets, pumps, or filters, depending on whether they will clean in coastal areas, at sea, or on the ocean floor.

To date, many developers have been using similar technological approaches, but there are indications that the next generation will increasingly rely on a wide variety of solutions. More and more, they will integrate machine learning, robotics, automation, big data analyses, and modeling. While the scientific community seems to focus mainly on monitoring and NGOs mostly emphasize prevention, most cleanup solutions result from the cooperation of different players, the study claims.

Rarely implemented

Still, most projects never move beyond the development stage. Very few solutions have become a technological reality or have been launched commercially. The study's authors point to the need to overcome the planning stage and think many issues through to the end. "The integration of solutions into policy guidelines should be pushed politically in order to establish a future industry," Bellou said. Based on research and data collection, the analysis reveals how thinly distributed and difficult to access such information can be. Most solutions -- about 60 percent -- were primarily geared toward monitoring and developed in the last three years.

Policy recommendations

The study addresses the limits of existing solutions as well as the challenges of developing new ones. It also makes political action recommendations. In addition to international cooperations between researchers and national environmental departments and agencies, the scientists recommend defining standards for each solution, such as assessments based on respective size, effectiveness, and an environmentally compatible footprint. This enables the creation of new funding programs that further develop both existing and new solutions, aided by a global database. "This is a way to encourage researchers as well as political decision makers to create a sustainable approach to bring maritime litter under control. We want to leave clean oceans to future generations," Nikoleta Bellou said.