The first Seabin installed in BC waters has been attached to the dock at the North Saanich Marina.
The Seabin sits in the water, and uses a pump to suck in surface water, and a filter to collect garbage, debris, and micro and macro plastics.
Brook Castelsky, CEO of the Oak Bay Marine Group, which works with several marinas in the region, says his favourite feature of the Seabins are the absorption pads.
"So it is able to collect and absorb petroleum based surface oils. I think we all know how easily even one droplet of gasoline can spread, even in a marina. So I think that's one of the really neat features. It can absorb all these surface oils and whatnot which we can see, but also collects a significant amount of garbage, which is what it's initially designed for"
The bins can collect up to 3.9 kilograms of garbage a day, which equates to 1.4 tonnes per year. They pick up things blow into or dropped into the sea, including micro plastics, rope, bottles, mesh, nylon, and more. The bins need to be emptied into the trash or recycling when full.
Castelsky adds that two more Seabin's will be installed in the coming weeks at the other marina's the Oak Bay Marine Group works with, one at the Oak Bay Marina, and one at the Peder Bay RV Resort and Marina, and they plan to have more installed after that.
"Some marina's need just one or two, or as many as six. So we'll just evaluate how effectively they work, and how many we'll need to cover the entire marina."
The Seabins are designed in Australia, and cost $7,000 each, but Castelsky says that's a small price to pay.
"There's a lot of technology that does go into them, but we're pretty excited about them. The health of our ocean is really important to us as a company, and I think that every little bit that we can do to remove plastics from the ocean is only going to make our future that much better. So we've taken a pretty significant step to make sure that happens, and our customers and our staff are very excited about that."