OCEAN TRASH PROGRAM:
AN ISSUE THAT MAY BECOME REALITY THROUGH A PROJECT SUPPORTED
BY THE MULTI ONE ATTITUDE FOUNDATION
The Multi One Attitude Foundation is proud to announce the start of a feasibility study in collaboration with two laboratories at the EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne), and with Oceaneye, Geneva-based association, working on marine pollution issues. The purpose of this study is to confirm, using amongst others the MOD70 racing trimarans, the viability of a plastic marine pollution long-term monitoring through the development of new measurement tools and to set up an international database.
Copyright: Oceaneye / Dimitri Montanini
Despite the extent of ocean pollution by plastics and the formation of large gyres of marine litter, called « garbage patch » or « trash vortex », these issues are still largely understudied. Indeed, the efforts of government agencies mainly focus on coastal issues. The study of offshore pollution, outside territorial waters, is therefore less known and relies essentially on NGOs work.
This pollution, not visible from satellites, far from maritime trade routes and away from any coast, demands important logistics to be adequately studied. Current measurement tools on both the macroplastic (>5 mm) and microplastic (<5 mm) are cumbersome, restrictive and poorly automated. Therefore, it is very difficult or impossible to exploit the trajectories of commercial vessels or racing boats to produce a systematic measurement of ocean pollution. Only research boats and vessels, specifically designed to study marine plastic pollution, are now able to measure the rate of this pollution.
« The prospects of scientific knowledge and ocean plastic pollution understanding generated by such a project may be unique. Indeed, this project could efficiently overcome the current constraints of this pollution measurement: the cumbersome process of collecting and analyzing samples and the logistic cost of sending ships to research area. The technological challenge remains relatively high and is primarily to ensure the possibility to develop such new metrics », said Pascal Hagmann – Oceaneye Association Project Director.
« We are extremely pleased to devote the scientific and technological skills of our laboratories to a growing concern which is one of the major environmental issues of tomorrow’s world », said Jean-Philippe Thiran, Professor and Director of the Signal Processing Laboratory (LTS5) at EPFL.
In addition, there is at present no common database on offshore surface waste within the different research groups. This complicates the analysis of results and the direction of new research operations.
The feasibility study initiated by the Multi One Attitude Foundation will ensure the relevance of the project « OCEAN TRASH PROGRAM » compared to the current state of scientific knowledge and technological developments in this field. The EPFL laboratories (LTS5, LMH) and Oceaneye will investigate the different analytical methods to automatically detect and quantify the presence of polymers in the oceans. This study will then be followed by a technical feasibility study on a plastic micro particle detector.
« Use racing boat trajectories to survey the state of marine pollution is a bright idea. However, it also poses several scientific and technical challenges that will surely foster our students and doctoral students interest », said Mohamed Farhat, Senior Lecturer and Researcher at LMH.
Finally, partners will identify development opportunities for a large-scale project with investors and industry partners to eventually lead to:
– The development of simple automated measurement tools, especially for the detection of plastic micro particles.
– The study and the exploitation of the Multi One Design Championship and MOD70 boats trajectories as data collection supports.
– A database, freely accessible, to allow the diffusion of measurement results made with the new developed tools and bring together the results of other research institutes.
« Through its mission to raise public awareness on water preservation, mostly ocean plastic pollution and better management of freshwater resources, the Multi One Attitude Foundation aims to rally the key players around these issues. We are proud to contribute to research by initiating such feasibility study on measuring marine plastic pollution with Oceaneye and EPFL », said Anne-Cecile Turner, Director of the Multi One Attitude Foundation.