A solar-powered rubbish-eating boat? The vessel chomping plastic waste out of the sea

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/12/solar-powered-rubbish-eating-boat-plastic-waste-sea

A solar-powered rubbish-eating boat? The vessel chomping plastic waste out of the sea

Guided by floating barriers, the Interceptor has already stopped more than 143,000lbs of rubbish from entering the Pacific from one LA river

By Katharine Gammon
June 12, 2026

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The contraption is actually two barges – a smaller platform sits nestled inside the larger boat. A floating barrier directs rubbish into the device, where a conveyor belt scoops it up. An automated shuttle then distributes the waste into six dumpsters on a separate barge, sending an alert to crews when it is full. Above, solar panels form the ceiling and a conveyor belt runs slowly, dropping bits of plastic and waste into each of the bins. The whole thing can hold about 20,000lbs (9,070kg) of rubbish – the same as one fully loaded lorry.

Since it is the dry season in LA there is not much waste being washed down the river by rainfall. But I still see what the problems are: polystyrene takeaway containers, noodle cups, bottle caps, a yellow pencil, a palm frond dotted with colourful pieces of microplastics. They are all caught up in the boat’s conveyor belt. It’s a pretty representative sample, says James Patterson, the operations manager with the nonprofit Ocean Cleanup, which created the system. “You get a wide variety of basic plastics – a lot of bottles, cups, to-go containers, things from restaurants. That’s typically what we see out here,” he says.

When the waste is pulled out, it is sorted and sent to refuse facilities. “We want to make sure that from start to finish, we’re pulling the trash out in a responsible way, and it’s getting sorted or stored in a responsible manner,” Patterson says. “We don’t want a circular battery of trash here.”

This particular barge is a model for others being deployed around the world. Ocean Cleanup operates in 10 places, with 21 Interceptor systems – in countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Guatemala, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. It aims to clean up the 30 most-polluted cities by 2030. The big idea? Stop waste from ever reaching the ocean. “Instead of specific rivers, the goal is to clean up an entire area, because that’s how you get an actual genuine impact on society and on the environment,” Patterson says.

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