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South Korea’s Eco-Friendly Ship that Clears Ocean Rubbish
As marine litter and debris emerge as a serious environmental problem, a group of researchers in Busan, South Korea, is introducing an environmentally-friendly ship technology to clean up the ocean. Professor Jae-myung Lee talks to Sunny Um, South Korea correspondent, Maritime Fairtrade.
As of 2018, the country collected almost 10 metric tons of marine rubbish. This amount has been on a constant rise since 2015, according to the South Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.
Since the late 1990s, the government has launched many policies to mitigate the problem, ranging from regular monitoring of littering at the coastal waters to sending out cleaning ships to collect the floating and underwater rubbish.
However, some experts have criticized that these dispatched clean-up ships are also responsible for contaminating the environment themselves. This is because many ships operated with fossil fuel, a major air and ocean pollutant. Also, most of the collected marine rubbish is burnt or buried instead of being recycled.
To solve this problem, a research center at Busan, South Korea, designed a clean-up ship…
