Netherland-Based Company Believes Their ASV’s Provide an Innovative Solution for the Cleanup of Ports and Harbours

Published

February 16, 2021

Netherlands-Based RanMarine has come up with an innovative solution for the cleanup of the world’s ports and harbors. They have created a technology that uses autonomous surface vehicles to do this demanding and time-consuming job. The company truly believes its technology is the answer to the plague of plastic that has found its way into the world’s oceans and other waterways. It offers a flexible and cost-effective option to help solve plastic pollution problems in any body of water. An overview of this company can be seen on their Facebook Page here at https://www.facebook.com/RanMarineTechnology.

Richard Hardiman, RanMarine’s Founder, offered up some staggering numbers on the impact that plastic and other debris have on the world’s bodies of water and mankind in general. It all starts with an ecosystem that is under great stress from the way that people live. He stated that much of this is because 54% of the world’s population now lives in cities that are experiencing a rise in lifestyle expectations. This brings along with it increased consumption and the exponential growth of waste and pollution in vital ecosystems such as water. It’s estimated that the world is now producing some 300 million tons of plastic per year and this number is growing every year. The company founder stated that the fallout from this is failing ecosystems, increased civic costs, and a growing economic divide. Specific threats include that to the biosphere where over 700 species are now faced with the immediate threat of extinction due to marine litter. A heavy burden has also been placed on the economy due to the $260 billion lost globally every year due to unclean fresh water. He says that in addition to this, the annual cleanup costs of ocean litter amount to over $75 billion per year. The states of California, Oregon, and Washington alone spend over $500 million annually cleaning up their shared Pacific coastline. Hardiman remarked that perhaps the most pressing concern is that 2.8 billion people live in heavily polluted trans-boundary river catchment areas. These people who rely on seafood as a primary source of protein are eating seafood where an estimated 33% of that diet contains some form of plastic in it.

Hardiman added, “Modern problems need modern solutions. RanMarine is one such company that sees technology rising to this critical challenge. Now every city & port in the world can have a self-organizing swarm of marine robots that help keep its water clean and at the same time gather crucial environmental data.”

The company’s answer to this problem comes in the form of an ASV which they have aptly named ‘The WasteShark’. It’s a surface drone that swims around 24-hours a day monitoring the health of and cleaning up debris in a body of water. Hardiman says the WasteShark is designed to be 100% autonomous but it also features a mode where it can be manually operated by a shore-based operator. They also come with an option where they can be purpose-built for the end-user. He even mentioned that they not only can be used to clean up plastic and other incidental floating debris, but they come in very handy for cleaning up debris in a body of water that ended up there as the result of a flood. The list of specifications that are built into The WasteShark is equally impressive. This includes its ability to collect up to 500kg of near-surface waste per day. The company’s founder stated that it also features an onboard POV camera, a retractable basket for easy disposal of collected waste, and is live data-capable with a feed that contains real-time water health & quality data. When it’s not being operated manually, its course can be planned using GPS waypoints and it stays safe thanks to an installed collision avoidance system (LIDAR). He also mentioned it is it has a maximum working range of 5km and they are built in a way that should make them last as long as 15-years.