Concept: Waste Collecting Ships?

Ocean Plastic Waste Collecting Ships

By: Open Planet Ideas

Concept:

Unmanned automated solar+wind combined with biofuel powered, GPS navigated and coordinated ships would gather plastic waste in the north Pacific ocean, which would then be collected by maintenance ships and later recycled on the mainland. A GPS navigated and coordinated fleet of unmanned automated ships would be sent to north Pacific ocean to collect plastic waste floating on the surface. They would be mainly powered with solar and wind energy, merging the concepts of solar powered PlanetSolar catamaran and Flettner rotor assisted E-Ship 1 (or Alcyone). There could be also a small conventional wind turbine on the deck, additional power would come from biodiesel/gas/ethanol/hydrogen powered generator.

A turtle swimming amongst plastic bags.

The remains of a pelican and the contents of its' stomach display the amount of plastic consumed by this one creature.

The waste would be collected with lightweight but solid paddlewheels, which by rotating would also slowly move the ships forward. There would be two sets of rotating paddlewheels, one in front part for larger waste and one in the back part of the ship for smaller particle filtration.

Before the waste storage would be completely full, the ship would contact operating base through satellite phone connection to send for the maintenance ship to empty it and refuel if needed.

Waste would be brought to mainland for recycling and the ship would continue its collecting task.