TECHNICAL
AND INFRASTRUCTURAL SOLUTIONS
- Plastic
trash compressor, United States.
Federal and international law prohibits throwing plastic
waste overboard. To handle mountains of plastic trash until
ships reach port, the U.S. Navy has developed onboard processors
to compact and sanitize plastic trash. This equipment will
be on all Navy ships by 1999, and has military and commercial
applications worldwide. One day's worth of plastic trash
from a typical crew of 300 on a U.S. Navy destroyer Compressed
into blocks, thirty days' worth can be stored in the space
that would be filled by one day's worth of uncompacted plastic
trash. A 300-person Navy destroyer generates about 35 cubic
feet of plastic waste per day, which is compressed into
5 to 6 disks.
- Liverpool
Water Witch Marine & Engineering Co. Ltd: Floating Debris
and Trash Collection. The Water Witch is a versatile
vessel — best described as a floating 'JCB' or bulldozer
— which has been developed for marine clean-up operations.
It was first developed in the early 1960's, when the British
Port of Liverpool was choked with rubbish which was then
trapped within the dock system. There are now 69 Water Witch
Vessels in operation for the major ports of the world including
Hong Kong, New York, Singapore, Cape Town and London. See,
for example, Marine
refuse & pollution, Hongkong,
China. The Pollution Control Unit of the Hongkong
Marine Department is responsible for preventing and cleaning
up oil discharges into sea and harbour cleansing services.
It operates a fleet of specialised refuse collection vessels
which consists of one Disfloater and six Water Witches.
In addition, there are 29 vessels contracted to provide
a refuse scavenging and collection service. A total of 5,000
tonnes of floating refuse and 1,100 tonnes of domestic refuse
are collected annually.
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