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He learned of plastic pollution in the oceans while traveling the world, including Mexico and Indonesia. Pete Ceglinski, cofounder of Seabin, and a friend, Andrew Turton, learned about plastic pollution while traveling the world as surfers and boatbuilders.Д¬eglinski is from Byron Bay, along Australia's southeastern coast, where he said there is little plastic litter in the water. The company hopes the pilot project will help them hone their methods and yield insights into plastic pollution. Seabin is not getting paid for the installations in Philly and still owns the devices.

The company plans to launch its second North American project this year in Los Angeles. The Seabins will remain in the water through October, followed by six months of data analysis. EPA provided technical expertise and $25,000 to the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary to support the project. Microplastics cling to the twigs like synthetic barnacles.ДЄdam Ortiz, the EPA's Mid-Atlantic regional administrator, likened the pilot project to a 'science experiment' designed to collect debris in a systematic, automated, and consistent way. Seabin staff have noted the large amounts of organic debris, such as chunks of wood, twigs and tree limbs that also flow in the river. Plastic bottles and an unplanned Herr's potato chip bag floating nearby got sucked down quickly. The staff ran an electrical cord and turned on the Seabin (some are solar-powered), which started sucking water at the rate of 55,000 liters per hour down into its filter, trapping litter that was placed in the water for the demonstration. The rim of the Seabin floated just at the surface. And they come from disintegrating plastic bags, bottles, and foam objects.Дuring the demonstration, Seabin staff placed the device in murky water flowing behind the dock at Bartram's Garden and a bulkhead. Tiny pieces of polyethylene plastic known as microbeads and used in health and beauty products, such as cleansers and toothpastes, easily pass through most filtration systems and find their way into waterways through sewage treatment plants. Microplastics are less than 5 millimeters long (one-fifth of an inch). Microplastics make their way into the food chain as marine life, such as crabs and fish, ingest them, Klein said.

When I first saw what's being collected in the Seabins, it really was an eye-opening experience, especially to see all the different kinds of plastics that are floating down the Schuylkill River here and the Delaware.' 'In addition to removing trash, the Seabin pilot project вЂ¦ is helping us get a real handle on what kind of debris is floating downstream,' Kathy Klein, executive director of the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, said during a demonstration Tuesday. The amount of plastic in the Schuylkill is too overwhelming. The devices can help clean trash from the water, but that's not its main purpose at Bartram's Garden. The debris collected so far is dotted with blue, green, red and other microbeads of plastic. It has a pump that sucks in the river water and leaves the debris in the canister, which Seabin staff empty and catalog. Two Seabins have been installed at off Pier 3 marina on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, and another will be placed at Wiggins Park in Camden.ДЄt low tide, the banks of the Schuylkill are covered in plastic trash, so it's no surprise that the machine is sucking in plastic bags, bottles, and other debris.Д«ut the Seabin also collects bits that normally remain unseen.

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The agency has joined with the nonprofit Partnership for the Delaware Estuary to install four Seabins on waterfronts in Philadelphia and Camden as the first pilot of its kind in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is hoping Seabins placed in the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers yield insight on the types of plastics polluting the city's waterways and where they come from. Of 66,238 individual pieces collected, 90% were microplastics, or less than the size of a small bead. The Seabin, created by an environmentally conscious Australian surfer, sucked 890 pounds of plastic trash from 15 million gallons of water over the 30-day period. But the device, known as a Seabin, wasn't looking for fish.