The Ocean Clean Up firm decided to work on collecting plastic waste in Rio Motagua, which experts estimate is going to be the world’s most heavily polluted river. It is the largest river in Guatemala, extending from the western highlands to the eastern Caribbean Sea. Each year during the rainy season, waste overflows into the Rio Motagua, adding to the Caribbean Sea’s plastic pollution problem. Due to the massive amounts of trash flowing down the river, none of the existing interceptor solutions have been sufficient for collecting the plastic waste discovered in the river. This has resulted in the development of the Interceptor Trashfence, which uses landslide and rockfall protection technology and has enormous steel fences to block the passage of heavy waste flows but is still an experimental system and un operational. This is due to the structure incurring damage from the immense pressure of the flood, but the Ocean Clean Up research team has identified where to make adjustments for the next time they have to use it.
Ocean Clean Up has done an excellent job of creating the first scalable solution to efficiently intercept plastic in rivers before it reaches the oceans, which is extremely important for our environment. The issue of trash entering the ocean and leading to its overpopulation is a serious one. There are several ways to safeguard the ocean’s and marine life’s health, and recycling plastic bottles and bags is one of them. Companies must prevent new plastic from entering the ocean by closing the inlets and cleaning up existing plastic waste to cleanse the oceans of plastic. There are a variety of technological options that are available, such as Interceptor Trashfence, but organizations should also research the best and most efficient ways to intercept plastic in other rivers on an individual basis so that more options may be added to the catalogue.