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Tag: WasteShark

IoT: Pioneering the Future of Aquatic Conservation in Partnership with Deutsche Telekom [Video]

VIDEO LINK> Explore the synergy between RanMarine and Deutsche Telekom IoT in our exclusive insight into the collaborative efforts reshaping the future of aquatic conservation. Discover how this innovative partnership merges RanMarine’s cutting-edge autonomous aquatic drones with Deutsche Telekom’s advanced technology solutions. Gain a behind-the-scenes look at the impactful initiatives driving sustainable change, tackling global water pollution, and preserving aquatic ecosystems. Join us in unveiling the transformative power of technology and environmental stewardship as we dive into the dialogue between two visionary forces shaping a cleaner, healthier world.

PortsToronto launches Canadian debut of WasteShark aquadrone

PortsToronto, in partnership with RanMarine Technology, today launched a pilot program that saw two WasteShark aquadrones make their Canadian debut in the Toronto Harbour.

As part of PortsToronto’s larger Trash Trapping Program, two new WasteSharks, Ebb and Flow, will join PortsToronto’s network of Seabins in capturing floating debris and small plastic pollution from the surface of the water.

“I commend PortsToronto’s Trash Trapping Program for their commitment to removing waste from Lake Ontario,” said David Piccini, Ontario Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. “The new WasteShark aquadrones are an innovation that will only add to this success and build on the work the Government of Ontario has done with partners to launch the largest plastic capture initiative of its kind in the Great Lakes.”

Read the full story by ENVIRONMENT JOURNAL here

RanMarine Technology unveils a pioneering initiative for a cleaner aquatic environment with Ports Toronto

Toronto, Ontario 9 August 2023

RanMarine, backed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has introduced WasteSharks to Canadian waters. Leveraging the Netherlands Enterprise Agency’s DHI program, aimed at bolstering Dutch businesses abroad, PortsToronto and Port of Halifax are beneficiaries of the latest aqua-drones. This initiative aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals, promoting innovation, feasibility studies, and investment readiness.

Now in the summer of 2023, PortsToronto can proudly introduce their WasteShark aqua-drones named “Ebb and Flow”, as part of their visionary project set to revolutionise water cleanliness in Toronto Harbour. In tandem with PortsToronto’s Seabins, these autonomous Wastesharks will adeptly capture floating debris and plastic pollution, championing sustainability. Employing a Roomba-like approach, they effortlessly skim the water surface, channeling waste through a specialized catch basin and net. With a robust 180-liter capacity, each Wasteshark can eliminate up to 1100 lbs of waste daily. Based at the Outer Harbour Marina, these aquatic wonders will traverse target zones across the Toronto Harbour and waterfront, collecting data while supporting PortsToronto’s partnership with the University of Toronto (UofT) Trash Team.

About PortsToronto Trash Trapping Program

The PortsToronto Trash Trapping Program employs trash-trapping technology and solutions-based research to tackle plastic pollution and protect Toronto’s waters for future generations. Since 2019, the program has removed hundreds of thousands of small pieces of plastic pollution from the Toronto Harbour, moving the needle toward cleaner water in Lake Ontario.

The program is led by PortsToronto and the U of T Trash Team, in partnership with the Waterfront Business Improvement Area (WBIA) and the City of Toronto BIA Office Innovation Grant, Nieuport Aviation, the Toronto Zoo, Harbourfront Centre and Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA). It is part of the Toronto Inner Harbour Floatables Strategy, a collaborative strategy with a mission to reduce plastic pollution and other floating litter in the harbour, and of the International Trash Trapping Network, an initiative led by the U of T Trash Team and Ocean Conservancy, and has influenced the launch of similar trash trapping and data collection programs throughout the Great Lakes and beyond.

A Trash-Eating Sea Monster Appears in the Hudson!

A team of scientists and environmentalists tests out the WasteShark, an unmanned watercraft that vacuums up soda cans and potato-chip bags.

WasteShark is not a shark. It is an unmanned watercraft that its creators named for a shark, owing to similarities between how WasteShark collects its prey and the feeding habits of the Rhincodon typus, or whale shark. Cruising slowly, the whale shark takes in water and filters it for plankton and krill; WasteShark, meanwhile, filters urban waters for trash. But, whereas the whale shark can grow to the length of a subway car, WasteShark is only five feet long, three and a half feet wide, and a foot and a half thick. As the bright-orange fibreglass craft floated on the Hudson River recently, off Pier 40—collecting trash at or near the surface in its wire-basket-like interior—it looked less like a fish than like something accidentally dropped from a cruise liner. “I thought it was somebody’s luggage,” a member of the Village Community Boathouse said, after WasteShark whisked past.

When full, WasteShark’s hold is emptied by its minders—in this case, Carrie Roble, a scientist who is in charge of research and education at Hudson River Park, and Siddhartha Hayes, who oversees the park’s environmental monitoring. Hayes grew up jumping into swimming holes in the Catskills, while Roble swam in metropolitan Detroit, affording her insight into a still widely held view of urban rivers. “I used to swim in the Detroit River, and people would see me and say, ‘I can’t wait to see your third arm,’ ” she said.

WasteShark, which costs twenty thousand dollars, is joining the park’s scientific team more as mascot than as player. Roble hopes that it will generate interest among passersby and among “field assistants” (interns), who will pilot the trash-eating drone this summer. “We see WasteShark as a tool,” she said.

WasteShark’s latest test run in the Hudson happened to take place on the very day that forest fires in Quebec turned New York into a Mars-scape, adding a sense of urgency to WasteShark’s mission. As Roble and Hayes wheeled it out on a dolly from Pier 40’s Wetlab, the park’s aquarium and field station, they donned N95 masks and life jackets, and were joined by two interns: Vivian Chavez, a student at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, and Stefan Valdez, from Lehman College, in the Bronx.

They lugged WasteShark down a gangway to a dock floating in a cove bounded by Pier 40 and the pier leading to the Holland Tunnel ventilation shaft—discharging carbon monoxide and pulling in what was passing that day for fresh air. A wake caused by a ferry buffeted the dock, sending an observer to his knees. Hayes knelt by WasteShark, touching its stern. “O.K., so these are the thrusters,” he said, pressing the start button. “I’m holding it until it’s blue.”

Roble detailed WasteShark’s features—a camera, sensors for measuring depth and temperature—while managing expectations. In 2020, Roble and Hayes published, in the Marine Pollution Bulletin, a comprehensive analysis of the lower Hudson estuary’s high levels of microplastics, against which WasteShark is powerless. WasteShark is the robotic assistant to a volunteer shoreline trash pickup. “For that plastic water bottle that is just out of reach,” Roble explained.

They lowered WasteShark off the edge and, with a handheld controller, turned on the thrusters, which propelled the craft quietly. Chavez took the controls. “It kind of feels like you’re walking your pet,” Roble told her, “ ’cause we end up following it along.”

As the skies darkened, Chavez smiled and set a course for some rejectamenta. Roble mused about potential attachments, including one that resembles an Arctic fox, to deter congregating Canada geese, which are a threat to passenger jets. “Or maybe googly eyes,” she said.

Chavez attributed her immediate proficiency to her gaming skills, recently honed via the latest Legend of Zelda game, Tears of the Kingdom. She handed the controller to Valdez, who steered WasteShark toward the West Street shore. “I think it handles well,” he said.

“They are the guinea pigs, and they are basically loving it,” Roble said, pleased.

A waft of trash came up from under the pier, and a gaggle of high schoolers walked out onto the pier to take pictures of the orange sky. “It’s the end of the world,” one of them shouted—then he spotted WasteShark. “Wait, are you guys monitoring something?”

After an hour, WasteShark was heaved onto the dock, and Roble and Hayes, wearing surgical gloves, picked through its haul: a baseball, bits of wood, a Diet Coke can, a water chestnut, a cigar wrapper, a toy-A.T.V. part (“Always a lot of toys,” Roble said), an amphipod, a glop of gray mush not immediately identifiable, a bag of Utz barbecue-flavored Ripples, bladder wrack, seaweed (“Good adaptation,” Hayes said), a Canada-goose gosling (deceased), a coffee-cup lid, and an Amazon bag.

By Robert Sullivan July 24, 2023 See article on link

Defeating blue-green algae: Meet the advanced MegaShark

SUSTAINABILITY – RanMarine’s aqua drones help clean the water by combating plastics and (blue-green) algae, which plague Dutch waters every summer.

Nothing beats a dip in natural swimming water during a hot summer day, right? But every year, the same question arises again: Is the water safe for swimming, or will these awful blue-green algae prevent us from entering the water? With the WasteShark and MegaShark, RanMarine not only removes plastic waste and unwanted algae. “We are now working hard on developing an advanced MegaShark that can target the harmful and annoying blue-green algae as well,” says Richard Hardiman, CEO of the Rotterdam-based company.

In the ongoing battle against water pollution, RanMarine is making waves with its innovative water drone technology. The company is tackling the global issue of water pollution with the WasteShark and the Mega Shark: high-tech devices that glide through the water, collecting pollutants. “You can compare it to an autonomous vacuum cleaner, but instead of vacuuming your lounge, they vacuum the top thirty centimeters of waterways”, explains Hardiman. The drones are equipped with sensors and cameras and can navigate complex waterways.

The MegaShark
Natural waters face a big problem nowadays: algal blooms. The consequences of excessive algae range from unattractive appearance and unpleasant odors – bad for tourism and overall well-being – to severe disruptions in aquatic ecosystems by depleting oxygen levels and blocking sunlight, damaging plants, and harming the fish. “The blooms are fueled by excessive nutrient runoff of farmer lands and profit from climate change. As temperatures rise and the population grows, we must feed more people. That means more farming and more fertilizers. I foresee that algae will become a huge problem in the future”, Hardiman explains.

Read more here> LINK

The Robot Predator with an Appetite for Waste

The latest innovation from RanMarine Technology, the WasteShark is the marine drone cleaning up the world’s waterways. CEO, Richard Hardiman, tells us more.

Making waves in news circles as a ground-breaking robotics innovation, the WasteShark is an aquadrone designed to remove plastics and floating debris from our waters. After launching in London’s Canary Wharf last month, we speak with the company behind its invention, RanMarine Technology, to discuss waging war against floating pollution.

Q&A WITH RICHARD HARDIMAN, CEO, RANMARINE TECHNOLOGY

Tell us about WasteShark’s inception and what inspired its creation?

Richard Hardiman, CEO (RH): I remember I was sat at a waterfront café in Cape Town, South Africa, and I was watching these two men taking trash out of the water using a net. I thought, there must be a more efficient way of collecting the waste, and started doodling on the back of an envelope, trying to design a better method of solving that problem. I gave myself that challenge, and kept coming back to the idea. I really had an ambition to create something and eventually settled on the idea of a robotic boat based on autonomous units constantly swimming through the water and collecting the waste.

Although humans are responsible for the majority of the waste in our waters, I believe we can be deployed in far more impactful ways than simply collecting it by hand. We wanted to help solve the plastic pollution problem, with the WasteShark’s primary purpose being the collection of rubbish. But as we started developing it, we realised that the WasteShark was gathering various kinds of seaweed and algae, so we decided to use it to also collect biomass.

As these autonomous robots are swimming, we are tracking their every move, so we also thought, why don’t we use this to track data on the water itself? By adding sensors to the unit, we adapted it to become a mobile water quality data monitor, gathering information that we could pass back to our clients. This can indicate temperature changes or chemical imbalances anywhere in the water.

RanMarine Technology WasteBasket

How has the WasteShark been received since its launch? 

RH: It’s been extremely well-received since we started selling them in 2019. We continue to develop it to better suit the needs of our customers, and in the last year, we have really hit our stride. It has proved to be extremely useful as a unit that can reach the smaller places where plastics and marine biomass collect. We don’t try and clean the whole football field as it were, instead we concentrate on the smaller areas where these things can get stuck. Based on the feedback we have received so far, it’s an extremely robust and practical tool to use.

Could you tell us about some of your main customers? 

RH: We have some major commercial clients including Disney and Universal Theme Parks, and most recently we have launched in Canary Wharf. We also work with a lot of ports – in Canada we’re in the Port of Toronto, and the Port of Halifax, alongside a number of major cities in the US. Our customers are generally split between commercial interests, where water needs to be cleaned around commercial activity, or cities that have waste management programmes that we can enter into to help clean up their waterways and canals.

RanMarine Technology Richard Hardiman CEO and founder 300px

“My dream is to have thousands of these units floating around, monitoring and cleaning our waters while we sleep”

Richard Hardiman, CEO, RanMarine Technology

Could you outline your future plans for the WasteShark?

RH: My dream is to have thousands of these units floating around, monitoring and cleaning our waters while we sleep. We’re nearing the point now where we are a 24-hour operation.

We’re making major moves in the US, we’re in Israel, Africa, South Korea, and at the moment, the UK is a primary target for us.

The numbers prove that WasteShark is 85 percent more effective than other current purpose-built mobility units. As we become a 24-hour operation, we expect that to rise to 98 percent effectiveness at cleaning water currents. Our customers are already starting to see the results, and everything that we have in our roadmap is only going to make this better.

I’m extremely optimistic for the future, since our engineers have done a fantastic job in getting us closer to our nirvana of being able to clean waters all the time with minimal interference.

Although it is geared towards a slightly different market, we have just built the MegaShark, which is 10 times the capacity of our current version. This will launch commercially later this year, and we’re incredibly excited about it. For me, it’s all about creating more robots to do a better job of cleaning our waterways.

Published by Phoebe Harper – Editorial Director of EME Outlook

The plastic-eating ‘robot shark’ cleaning up the River Thames

A robotic shark that gobbles up plastic waste has been let loose in London’s docklands, to clean up the water by removing the equivalent of more than 22,700 plastic bottles per day, according to its developers.

The battery-powered electric catamaran, called WasteShark, can travel up to 5km through water before needing a recharge and collect up to 500kg of plastic and other pollutants as it guides itself through the water.

“WasteShark is a drone on water and it’s designed to sweep the surface of the water and collect trash, debris, biomass out of the water and return it back to land,” Richard Hardiman, CEO and founder of WasteShark’s makers RanMarine said as he watched one of his devices in the water in Canary Wharf.

WasteShark produces no carbon, noise or light pollution as it travels, and poses no threat to wildlife.

It is designed to rid waterways of plastic waste and make sure the plastic collected is recycled and reused.

“We have two versions, one that can be remotely controlled and one that is autonomous, very similar to a vacuum cleaner you might have at home,” Hardiman said.

“The idea is on the autonomous mode that it acts as a drone. So it literally sweeps around the water. You can go and do your job, come back and it should be full and you empty it and then you put it back in,” he said.

Twitter link

The machines also collect data on water quality as they travel, sending back readings on turbidity, salinity, temperature, pH balance, and depth of the water.

Published by RTE

Ranmarine technology teams up with aqua libra and canary wharf

RANMARINE TECHNOLOGY TEAMS UP WITH AQUA LIBRA AND CANARY WHARF GROUP TO LAUNCH LONDON’S FIRST WASTESHARK TO ELIMINATE WASTE FROM WATERWAYS AHEAD OF GLOBAL RECYCLING DAY

RanMarine Technology teams up with businesses to restore clean water in London

London, England, 17 March 2023 – RanMarine Technology teamed up with the Canary Wharf Group (CWG), Britvic, and Aqua Libra; the company best known for its infused sparkling waters, to launch the first WasteShark in London. The plastic-gobbling robot was launched into the Middle Dock at Canary Wharf just ahead of Global Recycling Day, 18 March 2023. 

The WasteShark is the world’s leading aquatic robot designed to remove floating waste and collect water quality data from waterways. The WasteShark is battery powered and can navigate up to 5km of water and collects up to 500 kg of plastic and pollutants per day, emits zero emissions without producing any noise or light pollution as it roams the canals. Once waste is collected, it is then recycled to live on again where possible.

RanMarine is excited to partner with business and smart property holdings to help remove pollution from urban waters. The launch of the WasteShark into Canary Wharf is a first for RanMarine in many ways- a first in London and a first partnership with a developer and corporate sponsor. This proof-of-concept connects like-minded stakeholders with a synergetic goal of removing plastic and restoring clean water, it is a win-win outcome for all involved.

About RanMarine Technology

RanMarine Technology is an autonomous robotics scale-up specialising in the autonomy of vessels/Aqua-drones on water and headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Our primary product, using the company’s proprietary autonomy and robotics software, is the WasteShark aqua-drone; designed to harvest plastic and biomass waste from waterways in smart cities, ports, harbours or leisure waters.  Additionally, the aqua-drone can be fitted with sensors to collect water quality data, temperature and depth measurements for informed water management actions.

Robot shark

‘Robot shark’ from startup RanMarine collects waste from the canals of Zaandam: Rotterdam company is aiming for ’round of millions’ to conquer the US

Frequent visitors to the Zaandam city center will have already seen him: the so-called ‘Veulvreter’. Here, in the Gedempte Gracht, a small white boat sails once a week with an insatiable hunger for waste. Floating cans, chip trays, PET bottles: this mini-catamaran eats everything that we humans would rather lose than be rich.

The ‘Veulvreter’, as it is called in Zaandam, is actually called WasteShark. It is a creation of the Rotterdam company RanMarine (in full: RanMarine Technology). After a charge, the electrically powered boat can search the water for six hours for waste, according to a pre-programmed zigzagging pattern. As a result, the ‘robot shark’ can remove up to 500 kilograms of waste from the water per day, according to the startup.

Zaanstad was the second Dutch municipality to launch the WasteShark in December, after Dordrecht had previously conducted a successful trial with the device. It saves time for employees of the municipal waste service in Zaandam, as they no longer have to fiddle with fishing nets to retrieve discarded cans from the canal.

Esther Lokhorst stands bent over one of her robot sharks in an old industrial building on a business park in the Rotterdam industrial area Nieuw Methesse. The interior can be described as a potpourri of wires and chips. A team of four young men works on the hardware and Lokhorst, as operational director, keeps an eye on things.

A little further in the open air we find a small water bath, which was installed here by RanMarine. Even though the sun is shining seductively this Wednesday afternoon, people are not supposed to take a dip in it. The only bather allowed is the WasteShark, which Lokhorst and her team test here after every refinement of the technique.

RanMarine’s WasteShark makes a tour of the test pool in Rotterdam. In the background operational director Esther Lokhorst (left) and founder Richard Hardiman.Photo: Business Insider Netherlands/Jelmer Luimstra

Sensor-equipped drones

The boats are in fact drones equipped with GPS and two sensors. The sensors measure the water quality and depth and forward this information to an online portal of RanMarine. “If, for example, dredging is required, customers immediately gain insight into how deep the soil is,” says Lokhorst.

Her company supplies floating drones that work completely autonomously, but also robot boats that you can control remotely. The robot boat can not only grab plastic waste from the water, but also duckweed. The company is currently investigating in Helsinki whether it is also possible to rid the water of blue-green algae.

No, the robot sharks are not a danger to passing birds, Lokhorst says when asked when we take a seat in a deserted, industrial-looking company canteen. “The boats only sail three kilometers per hour,” says the director. “In our five years of existence, we have never caught a bird or even a fish.”

RanMarine has so far sold more than fifty of these types of boats to 25 customers, says Lokhorst. Many of those customers come from abroad. For example, robot boats from the startup are sailing in the port of Houston, in Dallas and in Plymouth in the UK. The company has customers worldwide: from South Africa to South Korea and from Nigeria to Ireland.

Typical customers are government institutions and water boards, but theme parks are also part of the regular customer base. For example, RanMarine supplies its robot boats to Disney and Universal parks in Florida, among others. “America is a very important market for us,” says Lokhorst. “We are therefore now setting up an American division. We already have employees in the US and want to expand considerably.”

In time, this should result in an American office, says Lokhorst when asked. When, she can’t say yet. “For the time being, we will keep production and development here in Rotterdam. If we scale up considerably in the US, we will also start an assembly department there.”

In the Netherlands, Zaandam and Dordrecht are currently the only municipalities to which RanMarine supplies its aquadrones. It sometimes turns out to be quite complicated to hook up with municipalities. “The municipality is not always responsible for cleaning up waste. Some municipalities outsource this to cleaning companies.”

Lokhorst does state that its sales team is busy hooking up more Dutch municipalities. RanMarine even expects to start a project in the Wadden Sea soon.

Operations director Esther Lokhorst (left) of RanMarine joined the company in 2017. To the right of its founder Richard Hardiman. Business Insider Netherlands/ Jelmer Luimstra

Film WALL-E provided inspiration

Lokhorst is not the founder of RanMarine. The company was founded in 2016 by South African Richard Hardiman, who worked as a radio DJ and journalist in a previous life.

Hardiman came up with the idea of ​​the garbage-eating robot shark when he was sitting on a terrace in Cape Town and saw people using a net to remove dirt from the water. There had to be an easier way, Hardiman thought. His mind wandered off to the film WALL-E, in which the leading role is played by a futuristic robot that collects and compresses waste.

A little further on, the bearded man in his forties is having a video call with a colleague from the US. Hardiman has been living in the Netherlands since 2020, where he saw more opportunities to succeed with his startup plan than in South Africa. He participated in a growth program of PortXL, a company affiliated with the port of Rotterdam, for which Lokhorst worked. She joined the then fledgling startup in 2017.

Now, six years later, the company already employs 23 people. RanMarine has been profitable since 2021, according to Lokhorst. The company does not share profit and turnover figures. From the most recent summary profit and loss account that the company filed with the Chamber of Commerce (KvK), it can be concluded that RamMarine closed 2021 with a positive equity capital of more than 7 tons.

RanMarine raised an unknown amount of growth financing twice in its existence. According to Lokhorst, a “serious round of millions” is planned for April. With the upcoming millions, RanMarine hopes to be able to grow faster, especially in the US. The company is also investing in the development of larger aquadrones and robot boats that can extract oil from the water.

Rapid growth also seems to be necessary. In 2019, RanMarine was the first party to market an aquadrone. The market is now busier, with competitors in France, China and the US. Nevertheless, Lokhorst does not see a major threat in this: “The market is large enough for several parties. The positive thing about more competition is that this technique will become better known as a way to remove rubbish from the water.”

Article written by Jelmer Luimstra of Business Insider Nederland

Feb 23, 2023

The shark that collects waste and data

If you look carefully, staring at the water, you will see it: a shark with a huge open mouth. But no fish, plankton or unsuspecting swimmers disappear into this shark’s mouth: the WasteShark catches plastic and other waste. RanMarine’s promising prototype has developed into a mature water robot that cleans water worldwide. Creator Richard Hardiman: ‘I am an inventor, I enjoy turning ideas into actual solutions.’

The idea for the WasteShark originated in South Africa, where Hardiman comes from. ‘I saw two people fishing rubbish out of the water with a fishing net. I thought: surely there must be a different and better way of doing that? A product that can clean up waste without anyone being present. Around the same time, I became a father and developed an interest in sustainability. I wanted to do something good, also in terms of work. And that’s how the idea for the WasteShark was born. I have an engineering background so I started building. In 2016 I came into contact with the PortXL programme that allowed me to develop my idea as part of my newly established startup RanMarine.’

Water robot

Hardiman ended up at RDM Rotterdam, where he continued to develop his shark: ‘The WasteShark is a mini-water robot that floats and can navigate autonomously. It scours the surface of the water for plastic, waste and pollution and other things that do not belong in the water. The WasteShark collects it in its ‘open mouth’ and brings it to the shore. The smart shark can also pick up natural material that impacts water quality, such as duckweed, algae and aquatic plants. In addition, the WasteShark collects data on water quality. For example, it can monitor whether outboard water is suitable for swimming.’

Practical

How large and heavy is the shark? Hardiman lists the specifications: ‘The WasteShark is controlled via 4G, has a range of 3 kilometres, reaches a speed of 3 kilometres per hour and can swim for about 6 hours. The water robot is 1.57 metres long, 1.09 metres wide, 52 centimetres high and weighs 75 kilos. Very manageable in other words.’

Easy to use

There are several people and organisations whose models retrieve waste from the water. How is WasteShark different from other solutions? Hardiman: ‘It is simple, elegant and efficient. It is emission-free and does not result in any other pollution in the water, and it is easy to deploy. That was also our aim. We wanted to design a tool that collects as much waste as possible in a simple and manageable way, and can be used easily and by as many people as possible. If you have a fairly large car, you can even transport it in the boot. So it’s user-friendly for a wide audience.’

Millions of sharks

How does Hardiman see the future? ‘I am not against plastic, it is a convenient product. But we do have a huge mountain of plastic waste entering the environment. It’s all about how to recycle plastic even better. We can make great strides in that and the WasteShark can contribute. My dream is to have millions of WasteSharks active all over the world. Not only to collect waste, but also to collect data. We need to know what is in our water and not just what is floating on it. Using that data, we can learn how to improve and maintain the quality of the water!’

Springboard

What does Rotterdam mean to Hardiman? ‘My original idea was to return to Cape Town, but the Port of Rotterdam is a springboard to the world of robotics and engineering. And there’s a strong network of companies here committed to sustainability worldwide. This will allow us to improve the WasteShark even further and expand its distribution. I started out on my own and now we have grown into a company with 25 people, thanks to Rotterdam. I am glad I stayed, because without the Port of Rotterdam, RanMarine would not be here!’

Article and Video by Port of Rotterdam