The Ocean Cleanup's Interceptor 007 Comes to Los Angeles

Speaker 1: Her ready for Hollywood. The ocean cleanup is installing a James Bond themed Interceptor Codenamed double oh seven in Los Angeles, California. After years of planning, the Dutch nonprofit famous for cleaning up the great Pacific garbage patch and for stopping plastic pollution from flowing down rivers and into the ocean has struck a deal with Los Angeles County [00:00:30] to permanently install an interceptor and Bayona Creek. Los Angeles. B Creek is notorious for the plastic pollution problem, which plagues many rivers and streams around the world. When it rains hard in some areas, plastic pollution and other debris gets washed into gutters and drain pipes, which ultimately empty out into larger creeks and rivers that bring this waste to the coastline and eventually out into the ocean. Speaker 1: [00:01:00] The ocean cleanup has been using their interceptor technology for a number of years now to catch and dispose of floating debris before it can pollute the open ocean. Make sure to check out my previous videos about the intercepts linked in the description below if you're interested in learning more and like and subscribe while you're at it. There are now nine interceptors stationed around the world in places like Indonesia, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic and oh seven will make number 10 in Los Angeles, which they've been holding out on. To stick [00:01:30] with sort of a Hollywood theme. Speaker 2: Today is October the sixth, 2022, and we are live at the Long Beach Coast Guard Speaker 1: Base on Thursday, October 6th at the crack of dawn, the ocean cleanup live stream, the toe of the interceptor double oh seven as it left the US Coast Guard base in Long Beach, California, beginning a five plus hour journey to its future home and beyond a creek. The live stream and tow were planned in coordination with the county of Los Angeles, the US [00:02:00] Coast Guard and Hollywood to bring attention to the ocean cleanups technology and ultimate mission, which is to stop plastic pollution before it can enter the ocean and pollute our environment. As the tow was happening, the ocean cleanup provided updates about the organization and shared shout outs from celebrities and communities who have benefited from the intercepts being installed in their neighborhoods. Speaker 3: Hi everybody at Ocean Cleanup. This is Chris from the Bank. Coldplay, we are your big fans and admirers. Speaker 1: Interceptor [00:02:30] double oh seven is the ocean cleanup seventh interceptor and latest generation. The interceptors use a long arm that spans the length of the river and catches floating debris as it flows downstream, the arm guides the trash onto a conveyor belt, which brings it on board and dumps it into large bins, which are emptied out by a local human crew as they get full. Speaker 1: The interceptor double oh seven like its predecessors operates autonomously [00:03:00] day and night and is powered by a solar panel array on top of the vessel. Computers on board keep track of how much trash has been collected and monitor the bins alerting crews when they get full. The intercepts are designed to look flashy and futuristic to help bring more attention to the plastic pollution crisis that is currently plaguing our oceans and rivers. I think they also provide a feeling of hope and wonder knowing that there are people out there developing and innovating these types of technologies devoted to stopping the ocean [00:03:30] pollution crisis. When asked what the ocean cleanups end goal was, inventor founder and CEO of the Ocean cleanup boy and slat responded that the end goal was to no longer exist as an organization. Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's a very good point because, you know, we want to help ourselves out business. It's always surprising to me how few nonprofits explicitly state that their goal is to to stop existing at some point. Um, of [00:04:00] course there is exceptions. I think for the bulk of it, nonprofits should make it explicit that their goals to not exist anymore. We run this as a, as a project, and I think the sooner we're not needed anymore, the the better it is. Speaker 1: The ocean cleanup now offers a portfolio of river interceptor barriers for stopping floating debris. They have been experimenting with simple but effective interceptor barriers in Jamaica and smaller, more agile plastic collecting [00:04:30] boats like the interceptor tender. One of their more famous cleaning devices, which made big headlines in 2022, was the Ocean Cleanup System double oh two, which collects floating plastic way out in the Great Pacific Garbage patch in July of 2022, the ocean cleanup announced that system double oh two had collected well over 100,000 kilograms of plastic debris from the ocean. They shared video of the ocean cleanup crews pulling in giant nets full of plastic garbage, dumping it on the deck for [00:05:00] sorting and recycling. That number continues to grow rapidly as the ocean cleanup finals plants to update and perfect the technology system. Oh three will be the next generation ocean cleanup system and will be three to four times larger than a current system. Speaker 1: Double oh two. The ocean cleanup estimated that it would take about 50 ocean cleanup system double oh two s to completely clean up the great Pacific Garbage patch. The team concluded that this would be too costly and require too much personnel to clean up [00:05:30] such a large area in a short time. The larger system oh three they estimate will require about 10 fully staffed systems to clear all of the floating debris from the Great Pacific Garbage patch, saving both time and money. In the end, this newer model of the cleanup system prompted the team to remove one of the zeros from the model number because they predict that they will not need more than 100 systems to finish this job, check out some of my earlier videos on the ocean cleanup systems and system double oh two, which is currently deployed in the Great Pacific [00:06:00] Garbage Patch. Now back to the interceptor double oh seven. The ocean cleanup plants on having a christening event for the interceptor double oh seven with the public and local officials when it becomes operational later this year and CNET will be there to cover it and hopefully get on board for a tour. The ocean cleanup's broader plants for the intercepts are to have them installed on 1000 of the most polluting rivers all around the world, acting as 1000 different dams [00:06:30] for all the garbage that is floating into our ocean. Speaker 1: As more and more people discover the benefits of river barriers in similar technologies like Baltimore's Mr Trash Wheel or the Sea Bin Project, we will begin to see the benefits and will hopefully normalize automated solutions incorporating them more seamlessly into our environments. The ocean cleanup is fully funded by private donations and local governments, and you can get involved by making a donation on their website or just by telling someone about [00:07:00] the project. So the word gets out. If you like this video, then like and subscribe to C Net's massive YouTube channel for more videos like this one, and check out the ocean cleanup@theoceancleanup.com to watch their live stream of the interceptor oh seven being towed. Thanks for watching and buy for now. Speaker 4: Really [00:07:30] important that we have solutions that are scalable, that we can just build. Many of that's what's really ingrained in the philosophy of these intercepts. But at the same time, we've also come to learn that every river is different. There's all these different variables and ultimately, if we want to be effective at closing the tap, we need to always be able to have an effective solution for every one of these 1000 rivers. We need to have the right solution for the right river.