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Environmental Business Review | Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Technology has already initiated to play big roles in the environmental, conservation, and food movements.
FREMONT, CA: Humans are spoiling the ocean. But technology can support it.
In 2010, humans dropped above 8 million tons of plastic into the ocean. To put that in viewpoint: that's five grocery bags of trash for each leg of coastline globally. A study released before this year anticipates that that number is supposed to enhance tenfold in the future years, just adding to the garbage patches floating, which currently totals up to 245,000 tons.
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But it's not just contamination that's ruining the sea. Biodiversity is endangered as coral reefs are dying and oceans are acidifying. As per the United Nations, by 2100, without major modifications, beyond half of the marine species will be at risk of extinction. Above all, sea levels are growing due to global warming.
Technology has already initiated to play big roles in the environmental, conservation, and food movements.
Here are 4 technologies that can support us in cleaning and safeguarding the sea and its life.
1. The Ocean Cleanup
Cleaning the oceans in this life feels unattainable. Even with nets, gathering plastic floating in the water would carry billions of dollars and thousands of years. One 20-year-old was exhausted with the trash, so he started The Ocean Cleanup, which employs long floating obstacles that work with ocean currents to passively gather the trash. Because most of the current flow underneath, and the plastic floats at the surface, this technology hinder the bycatch of unnecessary fish and other marine species. And the platforms anchored to the seabed linked to the floating barriers are intended for large-scale deployments, covering millions of square miles without moving. The pilot stationing in coastal waters will start this year or in 2016, and the obstacle will be 2000 meters long.
2. Sea robots
For years, scientists have been utilizing robot-like machines to study the ocean's depths, where humans cannot go. Nowadays, they can manage robots above the water and transmit robots with lights, sensors, and tools to restore samples, take photos, and study the seabed and the creatures that live that deep.
3. Smarter nets
Yearly, millions of dead fish are pushed back into the ocean. They were too young and small or captured unsafely and died because they were so stressed out from being caught. It's an unjustifiable and wasteful procedure when much of the world's population relies on fish to eat. But final solutions are being made. One type of technology came from a partnership between scientists and fishing businesses in New Zealand. Precision Seafood Harvesting utilizes high-tech trawl nets to recognize and catch certain fish species instead of traditional sprawling nets that catch-all in their path. It holds more fish alive, healthy, and sustainable as they swim in an easygoing PVC even when on deck, so they are less stressed and less likely to be injured. Safety Net Technologies created another trawl to ensure other marine species are not caught in fishing nets. It can be retrofitted on present fishing equipment, utilizes less fuel, causes less harm to sea beds, and has unique escape rings that permit fish to get out.
4. High-tech tagging
Research in animal tagging has increased in the last couple of years, and the latest report in the journal Science revealed just how significant that evolution has been for marine life. Electronic tags are slim and may weigh less than a penny now. They have shared data about actions, migration patterns, and interchanges between wildlife and satellites for more than ten years. Receiver positions can be connected to almost any creature, irrespective of how small.
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