4ocean Shows Off New Pixie Cleaning Drone, Celebrates 30 Million Pounds Of Trash Collected

Forbes Innovation Sustainability 4ocean Shows Off New Pixie Cleaning Drone, Celebrates 30 Million Pounds Of Trash Collected Jeff Kart Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Following Jul 12, 2023, 04:00pm EDT | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The PixieDrone, foreground, can be piloted by remote or work autonomously to collect floating . .

. [+] debris. 4ocean The latest eye-catcher from the 4ocean folks is a Roomba-like robot for cleaning plastic and other floating trash from waterways.

The PixieDrone is built by a French company called The Searial Cleaners and designed for marinas, resorts, docks and public places to collect trash . . .

and awareness. These Pixies hold about 35 gallons or 132 pounds of plastic, so they’re not the main force behind a recent milestone for 4ocean, tallying 30 million pounds of trash pulled from oceans, rivers and coastlines as of June 27. Here, the 4ocean Jembrana cleanup team collects discarded fishing nets off the coast of Bali, .

. . [+] Indonesia.

4ocean The heavy lifting is still being done by more than 200 paid captains and crews in a dozen locations around the world using hands, nets, boats and funding from the sales of bracelets and other 4ocean products . Cleanup areas include Florida, Indonesia and Guatemala. Florida-based 4ocean is a public benefit corporation.

So they make money, but only after 1 pound of plastic is collected for every product sold, says Alex Schulze , CEO and cofounder with Andrew Cooper. MORE FOR YOU The Best Amazon Prime Day Deals: What Our Readers Are Shopping Singapore Billionaire Peter Lim’s Thomson Medical To Buy Vietnam Hospital Operator For $381 Million Shop These 54 Best Prime Day Baby Deals While They Last Drone Awareness The Pixie is about 5 feet long by 4 feet wide and a serious conversation starter. People line up to ask about the device, pilot it around and talk about ocean plastic whenever it’s out on the water, Schulze says.

The device sports a video camera and can be remote-controlled or operate autonomously, equipped with Lidar technology to avoid obstacles. The drones are being built for 4ocean to sell to marinas and other users. They were introduced a couple-few months ago and there are about a dozen in the wild.

“Our goal is to be able to be leverage these machines to get them into different areas around the states and neighboring countries,” he says. As for hitting the 30-million mark, that’s up by 10 million pounds since early 2022. The company started in 2017.

MORE FROM FORBES 4ocean Hits 20 Million Mark In Collecting Ocean Plastics, Starts Tackling Tires By Jeff Kart “We’ve been getting more efficient,” Schulze adds. We’ve been expanding our operations. ” That includes adding partners to help drive more cleanups and pay a living wage and benefits to 4ocean employees with support from companies such Sea-Doo, Garmin Technology and the U.

S. Polo Assn. The partnerships offer opportunities for companies to sponsor cleanups and purchase plastic offsets to balance out their impact, similar to carbon offsets.

People also can sign up . MORE FROM FORBES Web3 Projects Are Rebuilding Carbon Offsets’ Architecture Of Trust By Alan Ransil The Ocean Cleanup Business The average American throws away 110 pounds of single-use plastic every year, as reported by The New York Times. That plastic may make it to a landfill.

But in many places in the world, discarded plastic instead flows into oceans, rivers and coastlines through littering, illegal dumping and improper waste disposal, as explained by the U. N. ’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission .

There are at least a dozen big companies and startups in the ocean cleanup business, according to Insider Monkey , a finance website. MORE FROM FORBES The Ocean Cleanup Readies Launch of System 03, With Three Times The Plastic-Collecting Power By Jeff Kart “The credit system itself is not a silver bullet,” Schulze says of 4ocean’s plastic offsets. “That’s a stepping stone to a more sustainable future.

We’re trying to work with brands to find more sustainable solutions and try to move away from single-use plastic as a whole. ” Not all of the plastic collected by 4ocean can be recycled, but “recycling is our highest priority,” Schulze says. 4ocean says it goes above and beyond to document the plastic it removes, using an audited tracking system .

About 80% of collected plastic can be recycled, with the rest going to landfills but still being kept from getting back into waterways, Schulze says. “We are stockpiling a significant amount of materials in the gray zone, millions of pounds. We are waiting to partner with brands to utilize this plastic.

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