Renew Oceans : A Global Mission to Rid the Ocean of Plastic Wastes
Renew Oceans is a global undertaking that aims to tackle the lack of waste infrastructure in countries identified as having high-leakage rivers. A river is regarded as high-leakage if during its overly polluted state, the natural flow of water carries all sorts of debris, particularly plastic wastes, toward the ocean.
In one of the research reports published by the Environmental Science & Technology journal in 2017, data collected by researchers showed that rivers all over the world, sweepingly deposit from about a half, up to three million tons of plastic into the ocean every year.
Of the 57 rivers surveyed by scientists of Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, 10 were identified as high-leakage; posing as major sources of about 93% of the river-borne plastics ending up in the ocean. The ten rivers include Anur, Ganges, Hai, Indus, Mekong, Niger, Nile, Pearl, Yangtze and Yelllow Rivers.
How Will the Renew Oceans Project Address the River-Borne Plastic Wastes?
Using Renewlogy’s ReFence technology, the Renew Oceans project will divert plastic wastes carried by the 10 rivers, in order to prevent entry into oceans. The plastics collected will then create local value for the respective community, as the plastic debris will be converted into other usable materials. At the same time, waste pickers who participated in the localized project, will receive fair compensation based on the value of the plastics they collected.
India’s Ganges River, the First of Renew Oceans ‘ Mission
Renew Oceans’ first project is “Renew Ganga,” an undertaking that aims to divert, collect and convert river plastics deposited by the Ganges River. Data shows that the Ganges, annually contributes as much as 1.2 billion pounds of plastic debris, to the ocean.
“Renew Ganga” will commence this year (2019), whilst receiving support from the Alliance to End Plastic Wastes and the National Geographic.