Plastic waste is a huge issue in the world right now. Plastic debris is clogging up landfills polluting waterways and causing serious damage in many areas.
In order to tackle the issue of plastic pollution, one city in Australia decided to try something out that proved to be extremely helpful and the rest of the world needs to be aware. While what the people of Kwinana did might sound simple but it did something huge. The city of Kwinana places nets around their drains just outside of reserve locations. This allowed water and other things of the sort to pass through without issue leaving plastic and waste, in general, to get caught in the netting.
This protective cover over their drains is working and seems to be quite cost-effective as well. As of August 2018, these nets alone had captured around 815 pounds of garbage and prevented it from leaving the sewers. According to Surfer Today, most of what ended up trapped within these nets was food packaging, bottles, and sand. The debris, once the netting is full, is transported to a recycling center and taken care of.
While just a trial this whole thing proved to be quite effective and could end up working as a serious solution for cities across the globe. This keeps the debris from getting leaked into reserves and even open public spaces, positive feedback was received throughout the trial and with reason. Something so small can really make a huge difference.
In regards to this Mayor of Kwinana told The West as follows:
“The nets capture gross pollutants carried by stormwater from the local road network before those pollutants are discharged and contaminate the natural environment at the downstream end of the outlet area,”
“This ensures that the habitat of the local wildlife is protected and minimizes the risk of wildlife being caught in the nets.”
“Its success just goes to show how important it is for Government at all levels to really start to focus on environmental initiatives such as these and realize that small actions can have big impacts.”
Installing these nets only cost the city about twenty thousand dollars and that included design, manufacture, and so forth. Since other nets have also been installed in places that were considered acceptable and things are running smoothly. Could you imagine if we kept this up across the globe?
Their device/net itself is called the Ecosol Net-Tech or drain sock, it consists of a stainless steel sleeve extension that is fitted to outlets and holds in place a removable polyethylene net that when full also helps reduce the risks of flooding during storms. This city has made these into regular features throughout the location and is even catching smaller particles as well as big plastics. What do you think about this interesting device?