I Eat Rubbish
by Bonnie Alter, London on 01. 9.07
This cage is floating along the Thames River and gathering rubbish that has been thrown into the water. "I eat rubbish!", the notice fixed to it claims that it collects 40 tons of rubbish every year; the equivalent of 800,000 plastic bottles. Called a "passive debris collector", nine of them have been bobbing along the river for the past five years. Each captures tons of floating litter; bottles, cans, and plastic, that otherwise would have flowed out to sea and killed fish and birds. It was initiated by Thames21, an environmental charity working with communities to clean up the river, get rid of graffiti and create new wildlife habitats. They also operate a river cleanup boat called the “Taranchewer,” which is specially designed with a front-mounted conveyer that scoops floating litter off the water's surface. Over the past 18 months, it has hauled out over 100 tons of rubbish from the London Canal system. The Thames is now one of the cleanest metropolitan rivers, home to 115 species of birds. :: Thames21
You see, this is one of those, "duh" moments where every major city in America, nay, the world, should take note. A relatively inexpensive and passive system to simply take a bite out of our century old notion that if we simply throw things into the water...well...who cares?
From the looks of things, it can't have costed much and in the right location could take a decent chunk of the non biodegradable crap clogging our national arteries.
I think someone's got their arithmetic wrong:
either "it collects 40 tons of rubbish every year"
_or_
"Each has captured 10 tons of floating litter a week"
Which is it?
;)
- AJ
>>
Woah, is that thing automated, or are there people floating with it, throwing rubbish on there?
This is admirable since that is over three tons of garbage a month. For a water borne project this has to be very good. Details are missing as to the collection/disposal of said waste. I presume an organization devoted to such good works would recycle most of the material since it is paper, metal, and plastic. Here's the quote:
"the notice fixed to it claims, and it collects 40 tons of rubbish every year"
Well ok now, this is MUCH better. I doubt it is accurate however. It refers to the same "floaters" as above but collects over 10 times the amount of refuse. The two amounts are so different I have no clue which is more correct - if either has any empirical value at all.
"Each has captured 10 tons of floating litter a week"
I very much enjoy the Tree Hugger blog but I have to agree with critics that blogging isn't journalism. I appreciate the news aggregation, in spite of all the adverts, but can not take anyone seriously who does not do simple math.
Great idea, but what a shame this 'rubbish-eater' resembles plain old flotsam...
this site has some great articles, opionions etc and links, but just one little niggle - the orange typeface on the grey background is TERRIBLE for legibility.
I think it's automated.
Nice. Would be great to have one of those for the city I live in, though something like that would be even better if it could dredge up all the rubbish from the bottom of the river.
Would be interesting to see a floating barge spout a fountain from the deep of all the drudging from the bottom of the bed. Better than a passive sign, it would at least raise more of a stink.
Well ok now, this is MUCH better. I doubt it is accurate however. It refers to the same "floaters" as above but collects over 10 times the amount of refuse
One is annual, one is monthly, which would explain the "over ten times" thing, as there are twelve months in a year...
What about the trash thats stuck in the nooks and crannies of the river banks?