Tackling plastic

Tackling plastic marine littering

A huge amount of plastic enters the oceans: almost 20 metric tons per minute. A situation that has a chain of consequences on living organisms. To reduce this plastic pollution as much as possible, we provide solutions for collecting and recycling these materials.

• Negative Impact of plastic pollution

While plastic pollutes all environments, there is one that is talked about more than the others: the oceans. And for good reason: this is generally where our plastic waste ends up. Once it is dumped on land, it flows into rivers and streams, which in turn spill it into the seas and oceans. Under the action of the sun and the seawater, this plastic waste disintegrates into tiny pieces called microplastics. These microplastics then impact all living things, from corals and plankton to fish and seabirds. They contaminate the entire food chain, including humans. In addition to the risk of suffocation for the smallest species, plastic is toxic. Produced by petrochemicals, it contains endocrine disruptors. Microplastics also absorb other toxic substances: pesticides, hydrocarbons, heavy metals, etc., becoming vectors for these substances.

• Our approach to tackle plastic marine littering

We work daily to provide solutions to plastic marine littering challenges. Our solutions for plastic waste collection help limit the pollution the waste causes. We place a strong emphasis on developing innovative solutions in the areas of Reverse Logistics with a focus on sustainability, circular economy and new technologies in the era of Industry 5.0, in accordance with the priorities set by the European Union.

Trackplast

Development of an Innovative Tracking System for Monitoring Plastic Waste to Mitigate Marine Littering

Trackplast project sets its efforts in the determination of streams of plastic waste from land sources until they reach the shore and before entering the marine environment. Its ultimate objective is to propose solutions and a roadmap including preventive measures for avoiding or diverging plastic waste from the sea, thus reducing marine littering. For this reason, Trackplast designs and develops an integrated methodology of plastic marine littering management through the use of a customized object identification, tracking and data capturing technology. The developed plastic waste tracking system will be supported by an advanced web platform, which will be responsible for data collection, processing, visualization and reporting to the project’s stakeholders.

Trackplast aims to mapping the currently unknown travel paths of plastic water bottles from the point of production to its final disposal, in islands that are highly depending on the single-use plastic bottled water, attempting to close the loop of the plastic debris supply chain, while measuring and monitoring the plastic waste flows from inland and their contribution to marine littering, through pervasive technologies. In doing so, 10.000 plastic water bottles are planned to be tagged with a global positioning (LoraWan-type) micro-tag, in order to be constantly tracked over their life cycle in order to estimate the proportion of the bottles actually recycled, the number of bottles disposed or enter the marine ecosystem and finally identify potential patterns in plastic debris pathways leading to their final batch disposal in specific sea regions

Goldenseal

Ackling Plastic Littering of Greek Beaches and Upgrading their Brand Image by Utilizing IoT Technologies and Gamifying the Recycling Experience

project proposes an integrated technology that combines multiple new technologies, each of which is committed to shaping a technological ecosystem entirely devoted to combating marine pollution . More specifically, these technologies are the following:

A Wireless Sensor Network based on Iot technologies, used to collect data concerning the pollution of beaches.
A pair of unmanned aerial vehicles (one airborne and one sea-surface) with built-in sensors, audiovisual equipment and wireless communication capability, in order to send data from the sensors, as well as images of the supervised area.
A Suite of Software Tools and Artificial Intelligence Algorithms for data processing and analysis.
A cloud - based platform, which will take central control, monitor and feedback data generated by processing.