Marine Plastic Pollution - An Urgent Global Problem
More than 8 million tons of waste plastic end up in our oceans every year.
Sea Clean e. V. is committed to clean the oceans of plastic waste. To achieve this we collect plastic waste and convert it directly on board into fuel.
The process we use is called pyrolysis. Three years ago Sea Clean developed a prototype of a PTF machine (plastic to fuel) and tested it. The machine was installed on board the MS Cutty Jean. Therefore it was possible that Cutty Jean was globally the first ship that was powered by plastic waste.
With the help of this technique it would be possible to remove plastic waste permanently from the oceans. The resulting fuel can power the ship as well as the PTF plant. Surplus fuel can be sold on the open market.
Waste plastic is a energie source
With a separated plastic fuelstock the PTF machine developed by Sea Clean is capable of producing close to 90% fuel (aprox. 8% gas and 2% carbon black) almost emmision free. Plastic collected from the sea is mixed plastic which results in a lower fuel yield of approximately 70%. The byproduct, gas, is used to fuel the PTF machine.
To reach the optimum yield bigger ships and bigger PTF machines are needed, i.e. investors that understand that these floating oilfields are a gap in the market.
Smaller machines are relatively easy to produce and could be installed in acute problem areas such as the South China Sea, Thailand and Indonesia.
If the population on land and local fisherman understand that plastics are a valuable resource which they can use to produce fuel for boats and ships, thoughtless dumping of plastics will be a thing of the past.
Waste plastic will become valuable again!
Sea-Clean & MS Cutty Jean
Sea-Clean is a German-basednon-governmental organization committed to delivering marine waste reduction.
Our concept combines resources and knowledge across different technologies.
What we are most proud of is our proof tested prototype machine that converts ocean-based plastic waste into fuel.
SEA-CLEAN launched the traditional ship CUTTY JEAN as the world's first boat powered by plastic waste.
The next phase of the SEA-CLEAN project requires further equipment.