Page 12: of Marine Technology Magazine (July 2020)

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The Ocean Cleanup founder & CEO

Boyen Slat on the

Interceptor 002 in Klang River,

Malaysia.

© The Ocean Cleanup

Technology & Technique to Identify & Clean Up the

Microplastics Mess

By Celia Konowe

The science and technology surrounding discovery, mitigation and clean-up of mi- croplastics in the world’s environment makes this year’s “MTR100.” Here we offer insights on the organizations, people and technologies taking the lead.

s marine journalists, scien- threatening the prosperity of wildlife, and even harder to collect and identify. tists, technologists, activists natural habitats and human health. To Microplastics are not new to the marine and enthusiasts, we are aware make matters worse, the chemical struc- industry; the presence of such tiny par-

Aof the large-scale impact that ture of most plastic materials prevents ticles in our oceans is well accepted and consumer macro-plastic products have its complete degradation in nature, in- has spurred a cultural and technological on aquatic ecosystems. Ranging from stead leaving behind microplastic par- race to understand and remove this con- plastic bags and straws to bottles and ticles. Measured as smaller than ? ve taminant. However, as new technologies ? shing nets, these materials pollute har- millimeters in size, microplastics can and techniques are developed to count bors, rivers, lakes and oceans, all while be dif? cult to see with the naked eye and identify samples, the number of

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