The Seabin is an ocean garbage bin that works like a large pool skimmer. We're proud to have one operating on the museum's waterfront.
Seabins are powered from shore - requiring access to electricity - and use a 110 or 220 V motor to pump water to create a vortex, sucking debris out of the water and into a catch-bag within the bin, pushing the cleaned water back out.
The daily catch of a current Seabin. The Seabin installed in our Basin collected 10kg of waste in 12 hours. Image: Seabin Project.
It is also equipped with oil absorbent pads that clean surface water of petroleum-based oils and detergents. The catch-bag was recently re-engineered to collect micro fibres. The Seabin can capture an astounding 90,000 shopping bags per year.
When put into action 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, each Seabin has the potential to prevent some 1.4 tons, or 3.4kgs a day, of marine litter from entering our oceans every year by filtering the water of everything from plastic bags and drink containers, to cigarette buds, micro-plastics and surface oils. Seabins are deployed close to docks, marinas, banks and shorelines, for ease of maintenance and emptying, but also at the main point of human pollution to mitigate rubbish from reaching the broader ocean.
Seabin being installed at the wharf in front of the museum.
The Seabin is a practical, on the ground approach to reducing visible waste in public waterways, but the Seabin Project isn’t just about a floating water suction-powered garbage bin: their aim is to collaborate with corporations, governments and non-profits to develop and implement long-term solutions to ocean plastic pollution.
Visit seabinproject.com for more information on the Seabin Project.
Read our blog about the museum's Seabin trial.