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The Ocean Cleanup expands to polluted rivers

Watch The Ocean Cleanup unveil its new automated system The Interceptor, which will be deployed to catch plastic debris in rivers before it reaches our oceans.

Stephen Beacham Senior Video Producer
I'm an award-winning Senior Video Producer and Host for CNET.com focusing on How-To videos, AI, and environmental technologies. I lead CNET's How-To video strategy for horizontal and vertical video formats on multiple platforms. I am responsible for managing and optimizing CNET's flagship YouTube channel by developing and implementing our publishing and subscriber growth strategies. I also serve as CNET's Live Events Producer and Live Streaming Engineer coordinating CNET's team coverage of big tech events since 2011. I come from an audio production background as a Music Producer, Audio Engineer, and Mixer and have worked with multi-platinum artists including Green Day, Smash Mouth, and Lenny Kravitz. Today, I continue to produce and mix records for artists and bands spanning a wide range of genres and have been building a list of credits sound designing and mixing short films.
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  • Webby Award Winner for Best Environmental and Sustainability video (2023), 3-time Telly Award Winner (2019, 2020, 2022) 12 years experience producing videos, podcasts, and live events for CNET.
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Stephen Beacham
2 min read
The Ocean Cleanup

The Ocean Cleanup, which launched a system last year to clear away the Great Pacific Garbage Patch off California (The Ocean Cleanup launches to the Pacific Garbage Patch), just announced a new device to catch plastic before if flows into the ocean. During an Oct. 26 press conference (The Ocean Cleanup unveils The Interceptor; a river-based plastic catcher) in the Netherlands, Ocean Cleanup CEO Boyan Slat unveiled the Interceptor, which'll be used to clean up 1,000 of the most plastic polluting rivers in the world. The rivers being targeted are "responsible for about 80% of ocean plastic pollution," according to a press release, and the goal is to finish the cleanup before the year 2025 is out. 

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The Ocean Cleanup

The Interceptor is a large, scalable device that'll be anchored to riverbeds to autonomously catch plastic as it flows along. The group says the Interceptor can extract 50,000 kilograms (about 110,000 pounds) of trash per day and could potentially collect up to "100,000 kg per day under optimized conditions." The device is designed to be environmentally friendly. It's solar powered, and lithium-ion batteries let it work day and night without producing noise or exhaust fumes, the group says.

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The Ocean Cleanup

Ocean Cleanup's Interceptor has already been installed and is operational in two locations: Jakarta, Indonesia, and Klang, Malaysia. A third system is headed to Can Tho in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, the group says, and a fourth is destined for the Dominican Republic.

CNET spoke with Slat via Skype about the Interceptor.

Watch highlights from The Ocean Cleanup's Interceptor news event here: