Contrary to many assumptions - unfortunately only less than 5% of the plastic can be found on the sea surface. The rest are in the deep sea, on the sea floor and near the coast at depths of up to a few hundred meters, which makes recovery considerably more difficult. A reason for us to include the coastal regions in our project. This also applies to the estuaries of large rivers. Because only a small number of rivers are responsible for a large part of the garbage that ends up in our seas.
As you can see in the picture below (source: Wikipedia), 72.7% of plastic waste is in the open sea and on the seabed near the coast. 26.8% of plastic is found in close proximity to coasts and beaches. Less than 5% (0.5% in the picture) on the sea surface .. that corresponds to 210-439 K tons out of 86 million tons.
Reason enough for us to develop specific robots, drones and submarines to focus on areas where most of the plastic can be found !
We are also happy to lend our robots to other NGOs - we can only solve these problems together
Your Ocean Quest Team
OQ Europe
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