Coldplay Adopts a Barge That Plucks Plastic Out of the River –Before it Flows to the Ocean

Our old friends, the Ocean Cleanup project has in recent years begun to fix its attention on the plastic from rivers flowing into the sea, trying to stop more plastic from getting into the ocean, so that cleaning the oceans up themselves might be easier. Now they have a little help from an English band whose blockbuster hit was ‘Fix You’. Seems kind of poetic, doesn’t it?

The rock group, Coldplay, is sponsoring the newest ‘Interceptor’, one of the semi-autonomous water craft developed by The Ocean Cleanup to extract plastic from rivers before it enters the ocean, that we have reported on before, last year.

The collaboration will widen the net for the nonprofit’s goal of launching an Interceptor in each of the world’s most polluted rivers—in order to “turn off the taps” and essentially catch the plastic along the river’s course, with the goal of reducing the much more difficult task of capturing it in the ocean.

“Without action, there could be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050. We’re proud to sponsor Interceptor 005 which will catch thousands of tons of waste before it reaches the ocean.” Chris Martin, Coldplay

The first Interceptors, envisioned and built as solar-powered barges, were launched in 2019 in the Klang River in Kuala Lumpur—one of the 50 worst rivers for pollution—and the Cengkareng Drain in Jakarta, to extract over 220,000 pounds of trash (100,000 kilos) per day, which is truly a gargantuan amount, but still merely a drop in the sea of plastic that we’re trying to remove.

The third Interceptor to be deployed, is operating in the Rio Ozama in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The barges are internet-connected, allowing teams to gather performance and collection data—and the vessels can automatically notify local operators once the onboard dumpsters are full, so they could be emptied.

“I’ve long admired the work of Coldplay. They are doing great things to promote a better environment, and they are world-renowned for these efforts (as well as their music), and the reach of their voice is immense,” Boyan Slat, the CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, who launched the project while he was still a teen. Coldplay has agreed to fund the Interceptor nicknamed Neon Moon 1, was manufactured by The Ocean Cleanup’s partner, Konecranes, in their Malaysia facility, for deployment the spring of 2021 in that country.

From the vision of one teen, The Ocean Cleanup has grown to employ almost 100 engineers and researchers, and has plans for its Interceptor solutions to be placed in heavily polluting waterways worldwide, including in Vietnam, the United States, Jamaica, and Thailand.