Trash-eating drone tackles water pollution

Exclusive interview: H2O Global News’ Sion Geschwindt spoke with RanMarine CEO, Richard Hardiman, about water quality and how their autonomous drone – WasteShark – tackles polluted waterways

Published by H2O Global News

August is Water Quality Month – a time dedicated to the freshwater resources upon which we all depend. Maintaining and improving water quality is essential, but challenges such as pollution hamper these efforts.

Inland waterways like rivers and lakes are particularly susceptible. Chemicals, algal blooms, heavy metals, and bacteria are among the many threats to fresh water quality. Another is plastic.

While we tend to think of plastic pollution as a problem only affecting the world’s oceans, a lot of it originates and collects in freshwater systems before even reaching the sea.

Clearing up inland waters and harbours of plastic waste is crucial, but no easy task. To tackle the problem head on, Dutch start-up RanMarine have developed an autonomous water surface vehicle (ASV) – called WasteShark – which removes floating pollution such as plastics, algae and biomass from water bodies throughout the world.

The plastic problem

Plastics got us to the moon, facilitated huge advancements in medicine and transformed the manufacturing industry. The world as we know it today would be unrecognisable if it weren’t for this durable, versatile, and often indispensable, material.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that more than 8.3 billion tons of plastic has been produced since the early 1950s. Yet, about 60% of that plastic has ended up in either a landfill or the natural environment.

The characteristics that render plastics so useful, also make them an environmental nightmare. Most of us have witnessed the shocking images of marine life tangled in fishing nets or beached whales who have ingested too much plastic waste. But the impacts go beyond the obvious.

River are the greatest source of plastic pollution to the ocean

Plastics break down into finer and finer particles – known as microplastics – which are often undetectable to the human eye. Microplastics can kill aquatic life and leach harmful chemicals into surrounding water bodies. These particles have been found at the top of Mount Everest and the bottom of the Mariana Trench – the deepest point in the ocean.

According to a study published last year, rivers are the dominant source of plastic pollution in the marine environment. Cleaning up waste before it enters the ocean is crucial.

If you have ever participated in a beach or river clean-up you will know that collecting waste manually is no easy feat. However, technology aimed at simplifying the task of removing water surface pollution has been scarce to date – precisely why RanMarine designed WasteShark.

WasteShark

WasteShark is an easy to operate, carbon neutral, robotic, waste-eating-machine. The drone can collect 500kg of plastic waste and biomass every day, while gathering water quality data in the process.

“We aim to improve water quality on two levels,” said RanMarine CEO, Richard Hardiman. “Firstly, by removing plastic, waste, and excess algae from the water surface, and secondly by gathering data on water quality changes and possible sources of pollution.”

RanMarine CEO, Richard Hardiman, stands next to a WasteShark drone

“Water pollution is fast becoming an everyday issue for both governments and citizens” – Richard Hardiman

RanMarine aim to empower people and organizations across the planet to restore aquatic environments. Their data-driven autonomous technology empowers cities, municipalities, ports, marinas, waste managers, scientists and action groups, to clean-up and monitor their waters.

“Water pollution is fast becoming an everyday issue for both governments and citizens,” said Hardiman. “Using robots to continuously remove trash means we won’t see ugly build-ups of trash on the water, lose plastic to the oceans and see further damage to the environment.”

Accurate data regarding water quality is essential for water managers to make informed decisions. WasteShark has the ability to run the same route multiple times over successive days, tracking the movement, dispersion and potential improvement of the water over time using the same GPS coordinates. It can test for water quality parameters such as temperature, pH, conductivity, depth, turbidity, fluorometers, nitrates and other chemicals.

“We need to understand what is in our water, where that pollutant is coming from and be able to create predictions about when anomalies may occur or track down the offending polluter. The more accessible that data is, the better,” said Hardiman.

Smart cities

Let’s face it, no one wants to spend all day every day cleaning up trash from waterways – but it’s a task that must be done. That is why automated, robotic solutions like WasteShark make so much sense – they do the dirty work, so we don’t have to.

To make the process even easier, RanMarine is currently working on a docking station that allows the drones to dock autonomously, remove their waste and recharge before going out on another mission, with very little human intervention.

WasteShark helps build smart cities

WasteSharks can be found operating across the world, from Singapore, to Sydney and Cape Town. They are helping many places throughout the world embark on their smart city journey.

Smart cities understand that designing better urban areas requires adopting digital technology that improves the well-being of its citizens and equips decision-makers with actionable data.

With 70% of the world’s population predicted to live in cities by 2050, deploying smart technologies like WasteShark can make urban areas more liveable, safe and sustainable. Is it going to solve the entire plastic crisis? Definitely not, but it’s a start.

New floating drones could help fight plastic pollution

Floating drones inspired by whale sharks and four-wheeled robots are the latest inventions in an attempt to address plastic pollution, Bloomberg reports.

RanMarine Technology, an organization based in Rotterdam, has developed what they call a ‘WasteShark’ that collects waste through a wide opening that mimics a whale shark. The WasteShark is an autonomous surface vessel, this means that it requires no supervision as it can be left in the chosen water body, with a preset route, using GPS to navigate and then return home.

The organisation claims that the WasteShark can collect up to 500kg of waste per day. There is also a four-wheeled version, a beachbot, that collects small litter like cigarette butts and bottle caps. You can view the WasteShark in action on the canals of Holland below.

A recent publication in Nature Sustainability provided a comprehensive analysis of the solutions to tackle marine litter. Even though policies are being created to address plastic pollution, such as the decision taken by Tanzania in 2019 to ban all plastic bags in the country, the publication brings up the issue of the existing plastic in our oceans.

The research was led by biologist Nikoleta Bellou who commented that “the oceans have already been polluted to such an extent, simultaneous to all the actions needed to reduce pollution at the source”.

Plastics pollution is piling up faster than initiatives to correct it, with calculations indicating that it will take about 100 years to retrieve 5% of plastic in the oceans

As much as 91 million tons have entered the world’s oceans between 1980 and 2015, with more than 8 million tons entering the oceans every year. What we see on the surface is only 5% of the plastic in the oceans. plastic has contaminated the darkest parts of the Mariana trench and is so widespread that it is estimated that by 2050, 99% of seabirds would have ingested plastic.

The worsening plastic pollution on the planet seems as if our reality is coming to represent Pixar’s 2008 film, Wall-E, where the earth so despoiled that it is no longer inhabitable that humans are living in some kind of space-ark while a robot is left to clean up the waste. But this is just a movie…

To prevent this dystopia, policies to avoid disincentive plastic production and encourage a circular economy as well as public education on the harms of plastic are needed in collaboration with technofixes such as the WasteShark. In 2010, South Africa ranked 11th on the list of the worst offenders regarding plastic pollution in the ocean. South Africa only recycles 16% of its plastic, where the rest end up in landfills where they can easily blow into rivers and eventually, the ocean.

Article by Getaway

Australian first keeps waterways clean

A new species of shark is lurking in the waters near Cockle Bay Wharf, feasting on a diet of plastics, metal and floating debris.

Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Rob Stokes today introduced the WasteShark to Australian waters for the first time, a 1.5 metre aquadrone that will clean litter from the sea.

“Everyone wants a safe and sparkling harbour and I’m delighted to welcome the latest weapon in the war on waste,” Mr Stokes said.

“The WasteShark can devour up to 160 kgs in one sitting – including plastics, vegetation, floating debris, chemicals, marine fuels and oils that shouldn’t be in our waterways.

“Along with cleaning our waters, the WasteShark will collect and store valuable data on water quality.

“This is an environmentally-friendly solution to cleaning our waterways, powered by battery and emitting zero emissions.”

Placemaking NSW Chief Executive Anita Mitchell said the WasteShark was developed in the Netherlands and would begin devouring prey from this week.

“Swimming through enclosed waters autonomously or under remote control, it can remove rubbish while scanning and monitoring the health of the marine environment, sending data on water conditions back to a central command via the cloud,” Ms Mitchell said.

“It gathers air and water quality data, filters chemicals such as oil, arsenic, and heavy metals and scans the seabed to read its depth and contours.

“We’re excited to see the WasteShark set sail as an innovative, safe and efficient way to continue to keep Cockle Bay clean.”

Article by Mirage News

Reducing Harmful Green-Algae Blooms Is Crucial to Protecting Aquatic Life

Algae blooms are essential in maintaining a healthy body of water and a great deal of attention has been brought to them in the past number of years. This is because of the harmful impact they can have on the environment, human health, aquatic life and animals. Not all algae blooms are harmful. It is crucial to know which ones are so we can create strategies to ensure our environment and all the beings living on it are protected. Keeping our waters clean is ever more important. We use water for everything from cooking to drinking to cleaning and much more.

What is blue-green algae?

Blue-green algae is a kind of bacteria known as cyanobacteria. It is naturally occurring and a component found in freshwater environments. It’s considered crucial for maintaining a healthy body of water because it produces oxygen. Not to mention, it’s also a source of nutrition for particular marine animals. Responding to certain conditions, Blue-green algae could undergo a population explosion known as blooms.

These conditions involve slow or still-flowing water, warm days with lots of sun and high amounts of nutrients, in particular phosphorus and nitrogen. These blooms occur under natural conditions. Blue-green algal blooms can have an appearance similar to that of spilled green paint or pea soup and are not always uniform. They can sometimes be small and cover less of a lake with visible algae present. Blue-green algal blooms are also not always dense and large. When the cells break down, they create a swamp-like odour.

What’s the problem with algae blooms?

Areas where aquatic creatures are unable to survive due to low oxygen levels are known as dead zones. Generally dead zones are caused by substantial nutrient pollution. Primarily, they are an issue for lakes, bays and coastal water because they are provided with additional nutrients from upstream sources.

The additional phosphorus and nitrogen results in overgrowth of algae and this occurs in just a short period of time (algae blooms). They block sunlight and consume oxygen from the underwater plants. Once the algae finally dies, the oxygen within the water is consumed. Since the oxygen is widely reduced, this makes it very challenging for aquatic creatures to live.

The biggest dead zone within the United States, for example, is the Gulf of Mexico. It is roughly 6,500 square miles and occurs each summer. This is as a direct result of the nutrient pollution that occurs in the Mississippi River Basin.

Some of these algae blooms are known as harmful algal blooms. These blooms are considerably large and produce toxins or chemicals. They typically occur in reservoirs, ponds, bays, rivers, coastal waters and lakes.

Beyond the threats to water quality and aquatic life, algae blooms also have implications for humans, other animals and the environment. When they occur, they interfere with other uses of the water. This can impact human health and has implications for the economy and the planet. They impact water quality by creating unpleasant odours and tastes in addition to scum and discolouration.

It can also be toxic. In other words, contact with large amounts of blue-green algae can cause irritation to the skin and eyes. In serious situations, they can damage the human nervous system and liver. Exposure to blue-green algae blooms has been linked to the death of livestock, pets and wildlife.

As the bloom becomes less intense, decaying and dead algae can lower oxygen levels within the water. This has a direct effect on aquatic animals, causing them to experience stress or could even result in fatalities. During times of drought, algae blooms can severely degrade aquatic ecosystems.

Not all algae blooms are deemed harmful. Some examples of harmful algal blooms that pose implications for aquatic ecosystems, human health and the economy include red tides, cyanobacteria and blue-green algae.

What actions can I take to prevent being harmed by algae blooms?

There are a number of actions you can take to protect yourself from the impacts of green-blue algae blooms. Firstly, if you come into contact with this kind of algae, you should wash your skin thoroughly afterwards. In addition, you should steer clear from using untreated river or lake water for cooking, drinking or brushing your teeth. Many treatment steps are required to remove algae toxins. Therefore, a simple treatment will not cut it. The water could be contaminated and cause irritation to the skin. Another way to prevent yourself from being harmed by algae blooms is to not eat fish from these algae-laden waters.

Is there a way to get rid of harmful algae blooms?

There is no way to fully remove blue-green algae from lakes. This is because while they are harmful, they are an essential component of the overall algal community. Rather than thinking about ways to remove them, we need to think about how to control the frequency and intensity of harmful algae blooms. Controlling the water temperature is out of our means. Therefore, the best action we can take is to lower the number of nutrients that enter these waters. Lowering the nitrogen and phosphorus levels within man-made sources is one of the best ways to accomplish this. This reduction will not occur overnight, but taking this approach is the best long-term solution to lowering the intensity of frequency of these blooms.

A solution does exist

Toxic algae blooms are a global issue and they are accelerating at a frightening rate in our rivers, lakes, reservoirs and oceans. The results of these blooms in our waters can be extreme. They are wiping out aquatic life, threatening human and animal health and our planet. Not to mention, they are impacting local communities and industries like tourism and fishing. While there is no way to entirely eradicate these blooms, we can work to control them. There are actions we can take as individuals to protect our own health. Not to mention, there are also ways we can reduce the intensity and frequency of these blooms by reducing the phosphorus and nitrogen levels in man-made sources.

RanMarine Technology created the world’s first autonomous data harvesting surface vessel to be deployed commercially, known as DataShark. Focussing on collecting and collating water quality health data from waterways in any environment the DataShark is capable of multiple sensor configurations, real-time data logging with GPS tagging.

DataShark can be configured with different sensors to help monitor temperature, depth, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, blue-green algae, crude, refined oils and more. Any data you collect is immediately available for reporting and analysis through the WasteShark Data Portal.

Whether you run a smart city, water district or an organization, the DataShark helps ensure that data collection is quick and accurate ensuring our waters are safe for everyone.

A MEGA 3D-PRINTED EUROVISION TROPHY

The four-metre high 3D-printed Eurovision trophy made from recycled PET material retrieved from Rotterdam waters is a genuine eye-catcher with a sustainable green footprint. This trophy is a reflection of the city’s character, long driven by the port, innovation and collaboration.

The Rotterdam proving ground

With its rugged port buildings and superb views over the water, the Rotterdam Makers District is the ideal spot for an innovative manufacturing industry. This is where new technologies are thought out, tested and applied. An area still bristling with raw edges, offering the space for businesses and educational institutions to experiment, explore and work together on a clean and sustainable future for the port and the city.

The new technologies here are based upon digitalisation, robotics and continuous fibre additive manufacturing (CFAM), and on the application of new, sustainable energy and materials. All of this results in the Makers District being an exciting proving ground and showcase for the new economy, there for all to see.

Circular production of PET material
Young entrepreneur Wesley dos Santos is the founder of the circular water-recreation business iKapitein. Sailing on his eco-barge through the city of Rotterdam, you will become aware of the diversity that the city has to offer, ranging from historic Delfshaven to the legendary skyline. The electric eco-barge removes litter from the water as it sails along; as the vessel moves forward, its built-in litter-catching system retrieves plastic from the water. If you would prefer to be more active on the water, grab a water bike and pick litter from the water as you move about! Wesley’s mission is to see more electric boats with built-in litter-catchers and sustainable water bikes on the waters of Rotterdam. Active boating and biking, where fun, innovation, awareness and recycling come together.

The collected PET litter from Rotterdam waters is converted into printing material, which Royal 3D uses to create new products with a 3D printer. This is not just any 3D printer, it is a CFAM, purpose-built for Royal 3D by CEAD in Delft. CFAM stands for Continuous Fibre Additive Manufacturing, meaning that glass fibre is continuously added to the printing material. This produces a stronger, more rigid and consequently more sustainable end result. This material forms the basis of the giant Eurovision trophy and is fully recyclable, even if a print should go wrong.

The future of the trophy
The giant trophy will be put up for auction after the Eurovision Song Contest and the proceeds will go to the Dutch company RanMarine, a Rotterdam-based business born out of a desire to improve the welfare of our world’s oceans and waterways.

Their water-cleaning WasteShark can play a significant role in helping to address the scourge of plastics, associated waste and biomass when deployed in appropriate environments. They have been specifically designed for use within ports, harbours, marinas and inland waterways.

They focus on helping to clear plastics and associated trash from waterways before they enter the ocean where their containment and collection becomes far more challenging and costly.

Read more on Rotterdam Make it Happen, visit their website

These are the Top Environmental Engineering Startups in The Netherlands (2021)

This article showcases our top picks for the best The Netherlands based Environmental Engineering startups. These startups and companies are taking a variety of approaches to innovating the Environmental Engineering industry, but are all exceptional companies well worth a follow.

We tried to pick companies across the size spectrum from cutting edge startups to established brands.

We selected these startups and companies for exceptional performance in one of these categories:

Innovation
- Innovative ideas
- Innovative route to market
- Innovative product
Growth
- Exceptional growth
- Exceptional growth strategy
Management
Societal impact

RanMarine USA

RanMarine USA has merged US operations with the global operations of RanMarine Technology B.V., developer of the WasteShark technology and based in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The WasteShark is a data-driven, autonomous aqua-drone that cleans marine waste, while collecting critical water quality data from local water sources.

The WasteShark is a unique smart city solution which is financially feasible for communities of all sizes and delivers quantifiable results day one. Waste and Pollution Removal – efficiently and effectively removes over 1000+ pounds of marine waste and pollution per day.

Water Quality Safety – collects and analyzes real-time data about water quality to assist with compliance with pollution regulations and identify potential contaminants early to minimize impact on the aquatic ecosystem, environment, and constituents. Biomass Removal – removes biomass (e.g., hyacinths, duckweed, algae) at the surface, which helps maintain aquatic ecosystems and mitigates potential damage to water equipment and facilities.

Oil Waste Collection – designed to operate in confined areas around boats, ships, docks and slips. The WasteShark can be fitted with a special drum oil skimmer for spill collection, and high-quality crude and refined oil sensors can be added for water quality data collection and hydrocarbon detection..

Read full article by The Startup Pill

Global Oil Spills and Modern Solutions

Oil spills have been a threat to the environment ever since freight shipping began in the 1950s. We dive into the dynamic data looking at the current state of oil spills, their devastating effect on the aquatic environment, the unforeseen problems and the modern solutions working hard to keep our waters clean.

Devastating effects

Staggeringly, just 1 litre of oil can contaminate 1 million litres of water. It is estimated that approximately 2.7 billion litres of waste oil enters the ocean every year, this means that about 2.7 trillion litres of water is polluted by oil each year. History has shown that cleaning up this oil is not very efficient and varies widely, with the recovery rate ranging from 5% and 20% of the initial volume spilled. This has caused ever-lasting damage to aquatic life.

The damage caused by oil pollution can be compartmentalised into three major categories:

Environmental

Oil spills can cause severe ecological alterations. The pollution destroys the aquatic organic substrate, which consequently disrupts the food chain, resulting in the extinction of species.
Animals that live in or near the ocean often experience smothering from the oil waste, causing hyperthermia, as well as the loss of habitats and shelter during the destructive clean-up process.

Economic

There are significant clean-up costs required in oil spill responses.
Disruption of financial confidence, recreational activities, power generation, agriculture, commercial fishing, tourism, and interconnected industries, such as transport, often follows.

Social

Health and safety concerns, as oil waste that invades and pollutes coastal areas negatively affect mental and physical health of population, as well as causing financial stress to the local community.

Global Oils Spill Trend

Unfortunately, reporting of spills is difficult to achieve as data is often incomplete, making it highly unreliable. In the last five decades, approximately 16.6 billion litres of oil have been lost in our waters due to global tanker incidents. However, promisingly, there has been a significant reduction in volume of oil spilt over the last 50 years (cf. Figure 1 & 2). These reported incidents however only relate to major oil spill incidents, classified as medium (7–700 tonnes) and large (>700 tonnes) sizes. Therefore, the true total quantity of oil spills, including small sizes, is both far greater and largely unknown.

Figure 1: Annual number of oil spills (>7tonnes) over last 50 years, (ITOPF)

Figure 2: Major oil spills since 1967 (rounded to nearest thousand), (ITOPF)

In the 1970s, the average number of spills per year was 79 – this figure has now decreased by over 90% to a low of 6 (cf. Figure 3).

Figure 3: Number of Spills (>7 tonnes) from 1970-2019 (ITOPF)

Figure 4: Location of spills from 1970-2019 (ITOPF)

Why the decline in oil spills?

Clearly, things are moving in the right direction, with oil spills at an all-time low, but why?

The most significant factor causing this decrease in oil spills over the last 50 years has been regulation. This has been in particular with regards to the introduction of the MARPOL 73/78 legislation which has signatories from 156 states. This accounts for 99.42% of the world’s shipping tonnage. The current convention covers spills ranging from bilge washing (failure to notify the government of illegal, but intentional, discharges from ships) to major accidental oil spills due to groundings or collisions; all are subject to severe fines and other significant penalties.

An example is the US Oil Pollution Act of 1990 charges criminal fines of $25,000 per day and/or one year imprisonment against a party that negligently caused an oil spill. While increased tanker movements implies increased risk, it is encouraging to observe the inverse relationship as the downward trend in frequency of oil spills continues. This is despite an overall increase in oil trading over the same period (cf. Figure 5).

Figure 5: Decline in number of tanks spills vs growth in crude and other tanker trade loaded (ITOPF)

However, many companies are reshoring manufacturing facilities and the current economic climate, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, suggests a negative oil trade outlook from 2021 as domestic production increases.

There has also been a huge global drive to reduce fossil fuels, headlined by Biden’s sustainable agenda which included re-joining the Paris climate agreement. In addition, the EU is looking to cut carbon emissions by 55% of its 1990 levels within a decade, adding strong stimulus to this movement. Alternative modes of freight transport are also being considered, such as the re-emergence of rail and electronic vehicle trucking. The UK is also set to ban the sale of petrol cars by 2030. All of this points towards a global reduction in the demand for oil. This in turn will likely help to reduce the rate of oil spills even further.

Grey area over small oil spills

Although medium and large spills have fallen dramatically over the last 5 decades due to strict penalties enforced by regulators, there seems to be a grey area of how big of an issue small oil spills really are. Over 80% of oil spills recorded in the last five decades fall into the smallest spill size category. This includes spills of less than 7 tonnes in size. Unfortunately, the volume of small oil spills is unquantifiable due to incomplete reporting.

In order to seriously tackle the severity of all oil spills, it is paramount that data is obtained about small oil spills. This is needed to quantify the severity of the problem and that we may build metrics that regulators can employ.

Modern solutions

RanMarine’s WasteShark

80% of small oil spills arise from operational accidents during loading, discharging, and bunkering within inland environments. There are many start-ups and modern technology entrepreneurs looking to find ways to solve this problem. This includes the innovative technological solution from RanMarine, founded in 2016.

RanMarine Technology developed the WasteShark, the world’s first data harvesting Autonomous Surface Vessel (ASV) designed to remove unwanted material from urban water. The WasteShark can remotely controlled as well as autonomous. It relies on minimal manpower to collect, detect and analyse water, exposed to unquantifiable, small oil spills in large areas such as ports, marinas and harbours., It boasts a 500kg debris cleaning capacity per day – it is a solution for monitoring oil pollution, but also a solution to the exponentially growing plastic problem.

This invention should help to assist authorities to verify compliance with pollution regulations, by flagging and identifying polluter infringements, in particular negligence and failure to report unknown incidents, which could result in severe fines. Its successful series A funding last year demonstrates investor interest, increasing traction and huge potential.

All in all, despite being a huge problem 50 years ago, oil spills have become much more regulated and as a result are much more infrequent. Nonetheless, work still needs to be done with regards to small-sized oil spills which are often unreported and therefore ignored. Recent analysis shows global economic losses of $ 474 billion per year from inadequate water supply, sanitation and urban property flood damage. Innovations such as RanMarine’s support the cleanliness and the health of the Earth’s waters.

Article by Dominic Wall, Market Analyst

Drones for Trash Clean Up in Waterways Could Save the Oceans

A project using drones for trash clean up in Denmark could show the way to saving the oceans from an environmental disaster caused by the massive volume of plastic that pollutes them. (Part two of a two-part series on the use of drone-captured images and machine-learning software in the cause of cleaning up the environment.)

Project combines use of flying, floating drones for trash ID and collection, to clean up Danish waterways

Denmark has launched a unique experimental project, combining both unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned watercraft to combat oil slicks and floating trash in the nation’s waters.

The CityShark program, designed to coordinate the use of the two different types of drones, began in July 2019, with the use by the Danish coastal city of Aarhus of WasteShark, an unmanned waste-gobbling sailing vessel, manufactured by Rotterdam-based RanMarine Technology.

In the first phase of the project, the WasteShark, owned by the Port of Aarhus, autonomously roamed the waters at the mouth of the Aarhus River where the river flows into the harbor, and scooped up solid waste — plastic bottles, single-use cups, plastic bags and other floating debris. The WasteShark is able to collect 500 kilograms (about 1,100 pounds) of debris each day.

Read full article by DroneLife

Looking to Nature’s Designs to Solve Human Made Problems

When a genius and an icon like Leonardo da Vinci looks to nature for inspiration in his designs and inventions, art and creativity, how could the rest of us even think about ignoring this wondrous three-billion-year history of evolution?

In his day, when Leonardo was roaming the countryside, strolling through the streets of Florence, or counting the branches on a tree, he embodied an intense curiosity about the natural world around him. It was a deeply embedded curiosita. Today we call it biomimicry.

Velcro is a much cited example of biomimicry (inspired by burdock burrs stuck in a dog’s fur), as is the flipper (inspired by ducks and their webbed feet), the submarine (whales), and Japan’s famous bullet train (the kingfisher). But none of these solutions actually do our environment any good.

Because when people look to nature to solve problems, shouldn’t nature herself benefit too?

We should all know by now that nature is in crisis. We’re facing food and water insecurity, melting ice caps, global warming from fossil fuels, deforestation, biodiversity loss, air pollution, and of course, plastic pollution. And that’s not even all of it.

But let’s look beyond the crisis of nature for a moment, and look to nature herself for the inspiration we need to solve the mess we’ve collectively made. As lovers of the ocean, we can’t help but dive under the waters for a closer peek at the plethora of magnificent creatures that live there as an example of extraordinary design.

The electric eel, for example, can produce enough electricity to light up to 10 light bulbs. Sea cucumbers clean the ocean (they eat anything that sticks to sand, take in the food, and then excrete the sand again, all nice and clean). Feather stars are almost walking plants that wave their ‘feathers’ around to move underwater. The blue dragon is a sea slug that floats upside down on the ocean waves. And basket stars, close relatives of starfish, use their many arms to create an intricate web to trap their prey.

And then of course, there’s the incredible fact that 76% of ocean creatures produce their own light. And still, we only know a tiny fraction of our ocean’s various species. New marine life is being discovered every day. How could we not be inspired to a da Vinci level of curiosity?

Biologist Frank Fish from West Chester University in Pennsylvania wins in biomimicry and sustainability for how he’s changing the way engineers think about aerodynamic design and inspiring the redesign of wind turbine blades that produce more energy more efficiently. And all this because Fish was captured by the unique design of humpback whales and their flipper bumps.

For EcoStp, their inspiration for zero power, zero chemicals, sewage treatment technology came from a cow’s own internal process. Nature’s genius empowered them to create a regenerative innovation that utilises the functional principles and strategies of microorganisms and the ecosystem found in a cow’s stomach. EcoStp’s patented technology treats sewage in a decentralised, self-sustainable way, without power, chemicals, or human intervention.

RanMarine’s waste-devouring WasteShark was inspired by the gentle and majestic giant of the ocean, the whale shark. A filter feeder, the whale shark swims with its mouth wide open, scooping up plankton and small fish as it moves slowly forward. And now its drone twin, the WasteShark, is also in our waters with its own wide-open mouth and voluminous belly, but its scooping up plastic pollution instead.

Richard Hardiman, CEO of RanMarine Technology, says it started at the V&A Harbour in Cape Town. Watching two people in a boat trying to battle plastic waste with nothing more than a pool net, he was struck by the futility of their efforts. Battling both tide and people’s inability to clean up after themselves.

‘When I later discovered this was standard practice in harbours all over the globe … and when I realised just how dire the marine plastic pollution crisis really is, I just knew I had to do better than that. We had to do better than that.’

The result is an autonomous aqua-drone that can collect up to 500kg of waste per day with a zero carbon footprint. It also harvests vital data about the health of the water. In fact, over 200 environmental sensors can be fitted onto one WasteShark, continuously reporting on vital facts to help us keep our waters healthy and protect the creatures living in it.

It’s a no brainer, when nature is our mentor, when nature is our inspiration, when we are truly connected, the sustainable solutions can be limitless.

These drones look for trash in waterways

In a river in the Danish city of Århus, a small machine called the WasteShark now autonomously sails through the water collecting trash, bringing it to shore, and then recharging itself. Soon, a drone will begin flying through the air to help: Using a special lens that collects data to be crunched by a machine learning algorithm, that drone can identify pieces of plastic or other garbage and direct the sailing drone to pick them up. The system can also identify oil spills, which the WasteShark can help clean up with a special filter.

“We’re testing a technology that can be scaled in a lot of different ways,” says Martin Skjold Grøntved, a special consultant for the Danish Climate Ministry. While the small trash-eating drone isn’t new, the addition of the flying drone makes it possible to find more garbage more quickly. The sailing drone also hasn’t been used to clean up oil spills in the past, because without the drone overhead scanning the water, it wouldn’t be able to identify the oil.

he tech startup Kinetica worked with the agency to provide a data platform, running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, that makes the trash detection algorithm run quickly. This isn’t the first time they’ve helped equip drones to detect trash. Kinetica also worked with the nonprofit San Francisco Estuary Institute to test another project that uses drones to track how much waste is entering waterways to help understand how well waste-prevention efforts are working. In the past, that data was difficult to gather at a large scale. “Resources are limited, and city programs have only so much to put towards these efforts,” says Tony Hale, program director for environmental informatics at the San Francisco Estuary Institute. “Nonprofits have only so many people to put towards these efforts. And it’s a very time-intensive process to go out and just do the cleanups, first of all, let alone to count the amount of trash and then characterize it by certain categories. What this drone-based and machine learning-based method offers is a way to expand the geography.”

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