Periodic Reporting for period 3 - CLAIM (Cleaning Litter by developing and Applying Innovative Methods in european seas)
Reporting period: 2020-11-01 to 2022-04-30
The H2020 Innovation Action “Cleaning Litter by developing and Applying Innovative Methods in European seas” (CLAIM) deals with the increasing problem of marine plastic pollution. Our society's overwhelming reliance on plastic objects poses a potential threat to human health and the environment. Plastics are degraded physically over time producing microplastics (MPs) and as recent studies confirm their presence in our environment, drinking water and human blood, have earned significant consideration around the world due to the potential impact on human health. In the recent years, there has been a thrust to diminish plastic litter, both macro (>5mm) and micro (≤5mm) as we move towards more environmentally friendly practices, whereas both national and local legislation and regulations are in handle of being drafted and implemented on national and local scales.
The envisaged solutions are important as plastics affect the marine ecosystem services which are the benefits that nature provides to human well-being (recreation, fisheries, aquaculture, marine protected areas etc), and as a society, we depend on healthy and pollution free ecosystems.
CLAIM focused on the development of five innovative cleaning technologies (CLEAN TRASH® system, small-scale thermal treatment devices, W&W EcoPlex Microplastic Remover®, Photocatalytic Reactor, CLAIM FB system), modelling tools and approaches fostering ecosystem services, targeting the prevention and in situ management of marine plastic litter at their point of introduction to the marine environment (river estuaries and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs)), towards the mitigation and efficient ecosystem management of marine litter pollution in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. CLAIM also provided policy briefs to establish recommendations for the EU on the most promising policies that could help to achieve its marine litter objectives.
The envisaged solutions are important as plastics affect the marine ecosystem services which are the benefits that nature provides to human well-being (recreation, fisheries, aquaculture, marine protected areas etc), and as a society, we depend on healthy and pollution free ecosystems.
CLAIM focused on the development of five innovative cleaning technologies (CLEAN TRASH® system, small-scale thermal treatment devices, W&W EcoPlex Microplastic Remover®, Photocatalytic Reactor, CLAIM FB system), modelling tools and approaches fostering ecosystem services, targeting the prevention and in situ management of marine plastic litter at their point of introduction to the marine environment (river estuaries and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs)), towards the mitigation and efficient ecosystem management of marine litter pollution in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. CLAIM also provided policy briefs to establish recommendations for the EU on the most promising policies that could help to achieve its marine litter objectives.
The technologies include:
1. An innovative floating boom (floating barrier- CLEAN TRASH® system) that retains, collects and monitors floating litter (that include macroplastics), specifically devised to operate in river mouths and waterways, reached a TRL9 and a capture efficiency of 95% of macrolitter.
2. Innovative small-scale thermal treatment devices (pyrolisers PYR1 & PYR2) that reached a TRL7. PYR1 was designed to operate in port areas connected to the electric grid handling up to 100 kg of waste per day (5kg/h) with a positive electric energy balance and a net total electricity production of 18 kWh per 100 kg of marine waste. PYR2 is a completely off-grid device, operating on-board a waste collection vessel treating 5kg/h and achieving a production of 22 kWh per 100 kg of marine waste.
3. A low-cost, automated and self-cleaning filtering system for microplastics for WWTPs, the Waste & Water EcoPlex Microplastic Remover® has reached a TRL8. The CLAIM prototype can treat water volumes of 30 m3/day but it is scalable and can treat the whole volume of a WWTP that is discharged into the sea. It retains microplastics up to 50μm with a retention efficiency of 99.04%.
4. The retained microplastics in the EcoPlex device are fed into a photocatalytic device (Photocatalytic Reactor). Using green nanotechnology-based coatings that encourage polymer degradation, it ensures photochemical activity without releasing the nanoparticles into the water-stream. The photocatalytic oxide is generating active radicals that attack the polymeric chains breaking them down in simple innocuous compounds, hence effectively dissolving the plastics. The Photocatalytic Reactor has a TRL6 and a trapping efficiency of 82%.
5. A seawater filtering system (CLAIM FB system) for measuring plastic particles on board ships of opportunity (Ferrybox) was developed that significantly reduce monitoring cost, compared to existing methodologies, for microlitter.
CLAIM facilitates better governance of the issue of marine litter by providing new modelling tools and concentration maps to track the fate and forecast the distribution of marine plastic litter pollution, both macro and micro, and scenarios to determine the efficiency of CLAIM’s technologies. An ecosystem approach guided the project through the evaluation of the potential benefit from the proposed litter cleaning methods to ecosystem services and human well-being.
Historical data on plastic litter and CLAIM data from cruises and FB filter were collected for the Baltic and the Mediterranean seas and stored in the CLAIM database (available also in the CLAIM website library).
CLAIM also studied the economic feasibility and social acceptance to encourage the uptake & upscaling of innovative marine litter reduction technologies and provided policy briefs and business models for the exploitation of research and development results, and for insights on the uptake and upscaling of new technologies. By disseminating its efforts to the society, from early childhood to mature stakeholders to decision makers, CLAIM aims to help promote conservation efforts in the future and influence policy-making.
1. An innovative floating boom (floating barrier- CLEAN TRASH® system) that retains, collects and monitors floating litter (that include macroplastics), specifically devised to operate in river mouths and waterways, reached a TRL9 and a capture efficiency of 95% of macrolitter.
2. Innovative small-scale thermal treatment devices (pyrolisers PYR1 & PYR2) that reached a TRL7. PYR1 was designed to operate in port areas connected to the electric grid handling up to 100 kg of waste per day (5kg/h) with a positive electric energy balance and a net total electricity production of 18 kWh per 100 kg of marine waste. PYR2 is a completely off-grid device, operating on-board a waste collection vessel treating 5kg/h and achieving a production of 22 kWh per 100 kg of marine waste.
3. A low-cost, automated and self-cleaning filtering system for microplastics for WWTPs, the Waste & Water EcoPlex Microplastic Remover® has reached a TRL8. The CLAIM prototype can treat water volumes of 30 m3/day but it is scalable and can treat the whole volume of a WWTP that is discharged into the sea. It retains microplastics up to 50μm with a retention efficiency of 99.04%.
4. The retained microplastics in the EcoPlex device are fed into a photocatalytic device (Photocatalytic Reactor). Using green nanotechnology-based coatings that encourage polymer degradation, it ensures photochemical activity without releasing the nanoparticles into the water-stream. The photocatalytic oxide is generating active radicals that attack the polymeric chains breaking them down in simple innocuous compounds, hence effectively dissolving the plastics. The Photocatalytic Reactor has a TRL6 and a trapping efficiency of 82%.
5. A seawater filtering system (CLAIM FB system) for measuring plastic particles on board ships of opportunity (Ferrybox) was developed that significantly reduce monitoring cost, compared to existing methodologies, for microlitter.
CLAIM facilitates better governance of the issue of marine litter by providing new modelling tools and concentration maps to track the fate and forecast the distribution of marine plastic litter pollution, both macro and micro, and scenarios to determine the efficiency of CLAIM’s technologies. An ecosystem approach guided the project through the evaluation of the potential benefit from the proposed litter cleaning methods to ecosystem services and human well-being.
Historical data on plastic litter and CLAIM data from cruises and FB filter were collected for the Baltic and the Mediterranean seas and stored in the CLAIM database (available also in the CLAIM website library).
CLAIM also studied the economic feasibility and social acceptance to encourage the uptake & upscaling of innovative marine litter reduction technologies and provided policy briefs and business models for the exploitation of research and development results, and for insights on the uptake and upscaling of new technologies. By disseminating its efforts to the society, from early childhood to mature stakeholders to decision makers, CLAIM aims to help promote conservation efforts in the future and influence policy-making.
Innovative environmental technologies will play a crucial role in solving marine plastic pollution. Together with other measures like policy improvements, change in consumer behaviour, partnerships between different players (e.g. technology developers and vendors) and coordination of decisions between EU, national and local authorities, will make it possible to build overall sustainable solutions. Matters related to the uptake and upscaling of the new CLAIM technologies were dealt with from various perspectives: cost upscaling, business model application and selection, and decision-making issues (to implement frameworks to make choices about which policies to carry out, or to define which of the available technologies should be used to tackle a specific problem, or to define how to implement CLAIM technologies to find sustainable solutions for local, regional or national marine plastics reduction).
Decision-making processes should be supported by well recognized scientific methods, whose implementation requires reliable data, characterizing all the variables that are to be managed, and precise cause and effect relationships to represent the impact of the actions to be taken. The structured appraisal of new technologies can provide organizations, markets and citizens in general with assurances on their effectiveness and positive environmental and socio-economic impacts. In this way, policymakers can be confident that technological solutions capable of contributing to a better marine environment are available and regulatory measures must be established to fulfil society’s expectations. Proper monitoring systems aligned with the MSFD requirements must be in place along with the adoption of the innovative technologies, as well as a good understanding of the baseline to allow comparisons.
CLAIM’s modelling tools, provide useful insight to gain a better understanding on macro and microplastics dynamics in the marine environment and assess the current status of plastic pollution on basin and regional scale to further develop environmental management action to mitigate plastic pollution in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas.
Decision-making processes should be supported by well recognized scientific methods, whose implementation requires reliable data, characterizing all the variables that are to be managed, and precise cause and effect relationships to represent the impact of the actions to be taken. The structured appraisal of new technologies can provide organizations, markets and citizens in general with assurances on their effectiveness and positive environmental and socio-economic impacts. In this way, policymakers can be confident that technological solutions capable of contributing to a better marine environment are available and regulatory measures must be established to fulfil society’s expectations. Proper monitoring systems aligned with the MSFD requirements must be in place along with the adoption of the innovative technologies, as well as a good understanding of the baseline to allow comparisons.
CLAIM’s modelling tools, provide useful insight to gain a better understanding on macro and microplastics dynamics in the marine environment and assess the current status of plastic pollution on basin and regional scale to further develop environmental management action to mitigate plastic pollution in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas.