An Indian teenager, Varun Saikia, 16, has created a prototype device which he claims can clean up several tons of ocean waste.
Saikia’s own design, dubbed ‘Flipper’ can reportedly operate on its own or can be used by attacking to a ship. He estimates a scaled-up device, can hold anywhere from 1,000 pounds to hundreds of tons of plastic waste, depending on how it is deployed.
While the design is still a prototype in its testing phase, Saikia claims 100 ships equipped with the ‘Flipper’ technology can clean up the Pacific garbage patches in about a year.
“I am currently working towards making Flipper not only a plastic waste collection device, but also a device that can collect data simultaneously,” Saikia said. The young innovator states the device, upon further tweaking, can collect plastics and the location where the waste is collected will be logged and analyzed to help make future collections more efficient.