Plastic barrier

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  top view of the sistem, arrows describes the flow direction and the central grid is where plastic will be collepted

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  lateral view of the structure with the turbine that accelerate the water flow pouring it in the river

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  top view of the structure with the turbine

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  frontal view of the structure with the turbine that can change position in function of the water level thanks to external motors and belts

Inspiration: I got the eureka moment while I was reading an article about the fact that the 90% of the plastic in the ocean comes from just 10 rivers that are all navigable

What it does : thanks to 2 bypass in the enbankment of the river with a turbine for each one, this

system changes the superficial flow direction of part of the river. In this way it helps to deviate the plastic floating trajectory in the water in a colleptor located at the center of the river

How we built it: this project needs specific knowledge in costructions like dams that we miss, so we really need a collaboration with different experts also in biosystems of rivers. We know that this structure is complicated and expensive to realize by we trust that it could be the best way to solve the problem of plastic in the ocean also because by stopping the plastic before it arrives in the sea this system prevents the diffusion of microplastic that are so dangerous for the envaironment

Challenges we ran into: there are computational and engigneering challenges but also politicians, this kind of structure needs colaboration with government

Accomplishments that we're proud of: we speak with different experts here in this challenge but also with some professors of Politecnico di Milano about this idea and everybody was in agreement about the potential of this plastc barrier

What we learned: by speaking with the mentors we better understood how to move forward the next steps and what we need to realize the project

What's next for Plastic barrier: we will compute numerical simulations to better understand the behaviour of the fluid flow inside the system. We need to find some collaborators or technical incubators as the one of Politecnico di MIlano where different experts of different backgrounds can collaborate to help us to start a first realization in a small river with simple flow.

Built With

• cad
• english
• openfoam