Grant: Engage Grants Program

This proposal seeks to design a process suitable for recovering waste plastics from the marine environment,specifically coastal waters. The increase in plastic pollution is associated with increased population density anduse of so called ""micro plastics"" in consumer products. While these pollutants often reach the ocean, theyaccumulate somewhere and thus their collection and recycling is necessary environmental solution. Thechallenge is that they must be collected and then pre-processed so that only the mixed plastic waste is sent tothe recycler, increasing their value. This will be investigated by designing an onboard purification process thatdries the plastic and separates any biological residue (e.g. algae) that may be collected with the plastics. Theobjective is to minimize any non-plastics collected and stored on-board so that at the end of a workshift, theboat can offload the waste plastics directly to the recycler. The on-board processing may include size reduction(schredding), drying, fluidized separation and thermal treatment (to remove algae).