Sea Chair Project Harvests Plastic From the Oceans To Create Furniture 96
cylonlover writes "You may have heard about the huge floating islands of garbage swirling around in the middle of the Earth's oceans. Much of that waterlogged rubbish is made up of plastic and, like Electrolux with its concept vacuum cleaners, U.K.-based Studio Swine and Kieren Jones are looking to put that waste to good use. As part of an ambitious project, they've come up with a system to collect plastic debris and convert it into furniture. Rather than collecting plastic that washes ashore or is snagged as by-catch in fishing nets, the team hopes to one day go where the trash is, collect and convert it to something useful while still at sea. Sea Chair envisions adapting fishing boats into floating chair factories that trawl for plastic and put it into production on-board."
Great idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
But how much will it cost to harvest the plastic from the ocean rather than creating it from scratch, whether it be from oil or other sources? (I seem to remember that PET can now be produced from corn by-products, not just oil.) I'm tipping that the balance of cost will not be in favour of this idea for a considerable time, no matter how necessary cleaning up our act may be.
There may be a market for selling these to people who have an environmental conscience, but I would be surprised - albeit very pleased - if it were big enough to sustain a company.
Re:Wasted Fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great idea. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention the fuel emissions from going out and doing the collection, or even the current system of driving around and collecting by-catch, than sorting and processing the material into furniture. Unless it's a lot more feasible than I suspect I have a hunch this project will do more harm than good for the environment.
Re:I see a problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact the little pieces of plastic are apparently microscopic pieces of plastic suspended in the entire water column over a vast area of ocean.
The author, from the documentary above, mentioned that he (she?) travelled to the alleged area to see the plastic and then learnt about the lack of visible suspended solids AND the problem with the local sea life drinking the water and filtering the plastic particles into their own systems.
Re:Great idea. (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:I see a problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the fuck do people always link back to slashdot stories instead of the actual articles?
Maybe, so that people get to see the comments too?
Re:Great idea. (Score:2, Insightful)
It would be better if the people in US learned to recycle.
Yeah. Troll. Whatever. Over here in Sweden waaaay more gets recycled than over there.