TWO seabins designed to collect floating plastic, oil and rubbish were switched on in Mandurah today.
The bins have been installed at Mandurah Ocean Marina by Peel Preservation Group and are among the first to be commercially installed in Australia.
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READ NOWSeabins are trash collectors that work like swimming pool skimmer boxes, pumping 25,000L of water per hour through a mesh bag.
Attached to a floating dock, the bins move up and down with the tide.
Peel Preservation Group became interested in the devices, concerned at the growing amount of waste ending up in local waterways.
A Seabin can catch half a tonne of waste a year, equal to 90,000 plastic bags, 35,700 disposable coffee cups or 16,500 plastic bottles.
Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski are two Australian boat builders who realised human over-consumption and poor waste management was killing the oceans.
In 2013, they teamed up to chase the idea that there were rubbish bins on land so why not in the ocean.
Seabins Australia Pty Ltd was launched in 2015.
The technology has since been developed overseas and placed in 23 countries.
Peel Preservation Group project leader Stewart Godden said seabins were great environmental education tools and the group hoped to engage local schools through an education program.
He said analysing the waste collected by the Seabins would highlight the impact of single use plastics on marine life and its potential impacts on human health.”
“Seabins can also increase public awareness of the need for waste reduction and for good waste management systems to be in place,’’ he said.
Mandurah MLA David Templeman said the initiative, funded by the State Government and installed with help from the City of Mandurah, reflected the community’s desire to work together to reduce the significant impact of plastic bags and other waste and litter on the environment.