In what is claimed to be a world first, Suzuki Motor Corporation has developed a Micro-Plastic Collecting Device for installation on outboard motors.
Marine plastic waste is a growing environmental issue with a huge amount of mismanaged waste flowing into the oceans each year. The waste then breaks down into micro-plastics in the ocean’s ecosystem, which can have a significant impact on marine life.
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To help tackle this issue, Suzuki has focused on the structure of the outboard motor, which pumps up tons of seawater to cool the engine and then returns the water to the ocean.
Suzuki has developed a device which collects micro-plastic waste from the returning water. Through this device, micro-plastic waste can be collected when the engine is running.
According to Suzuki, the device can be easily installed to the return hose and does not affect the engine performance since it only uses the returning water that has already been used to cool the engine.
During monitoring research conducted in Japan, a substantial amount of micro-plastic waste was found within the substances collected in the filter. Research is also currently being conducted internationally with further improvements scheduled for the device.
Suzuki said it will introduce the device as optional from 2021 before incorporating it as a standard feature.
“This ground-breaking development is part of Suzuki’s continuing determination to devise innovative solutions that mitigate the serious impact of plastic waste on our natural environment,” said Mark Beeley, head of Marine & ATV for Suzuki GB. “It marks the first time in marine industry history that an outboard motor cooling system has been utilised to extract micro-plastics from the seawater.”
This is a brilliant innovation, Think of the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of water that will be sieved for microplastics when this is going it will make an outboard motor something approaching environmentally friendly. I can just imagine the conversations that there will be when this gets into the real world. Fisherman: “And as I troll around the coast the filter picks up 20g of micro plastics an hour its really good for the environment”, he continues ” And then when I switch the boat off in an evening I empty and clean the filter ready for the next day”, Eco Interviewer “So how do you do that?” Fisherman: “Well I open up the housing, to refuel, and at the same time I take the little filter compartment out, I walk over to the pier side and I swill it out in the sea water, then I put it back”
How does it filter out just plastic and not any small sea creatures?
The filter system cannot differentiate between microplastics and micro-organisms.