The Great Bubble Barrier
Support this projectSaskia Studer has co-created a new technology to fight plastic pollution of rivers and oceans. A barrier of bubbles holds back the plastic, which is then picked up without disturbing our precious biodiversity. The Bubble Barrier is the first in the world which is used to capture plastic. They noticed that local people are always very interested and enjoy being involved. The Bubble Barrier is innovative because it is ship and fish-friendly and the Bubble Barrier reaches the entire width and depth of a river or canal. It helps to keep the local rivers clean as well as the oceans.
The Great Bubble Barrier has developed a technology which can intercept plastic pollution in rivers before it reaches the ocean: The Bubble Barrier, is a bubble curtain with a catchment system. The Bubble Barrier is a curtain made of bubbles that prevent plastics from floating down the river into our oceans. They create a Bubble Barrier by pumping air through a perforated tube on the bottom of the waterway. This bubble curtain creates an upward current which directs the plastics to the surface. The Bubble Barrier is a unique system that catches plastic over the whole width and depth of the river. By placing the Bubble Barrier diagonally in the river, the natural flow of the river will push the plastic waste to the side and into our catchment system. Here it will be retained and can easily be removed from the water by the authorities. A tailored design to local conditions will ensure optimal performance and requires no change in local infrastructure. An additional advantage of the system is that the oxygen level of the water increases, which can benefit the local ecology and restrain algae blooms.
Initial Problem
The plastic problem has been gaining a lot of attention, but the problem is far from solved. A lot of habits are still in place and need to be contested to evoke positive change. The fact that the rivers function as plastic-highways demonstrates the urgent need for a measure which stops plastics without obstructing daily river activities. Plastic pollution is a major threat to both people and the environment, and the problem is currently growing day by day. Every year, 8 million tons of plastic pollution ends up in our oceans of which 60-80% travels via rivers and canals. Plastics are found throughout the entire ecosystem and food chain. Plastic has already been found in fish, honey, beer and drinking water.
The positive impacts that the project has made:
The Great Bubble Barrier was founded in early 2017. The first proof of concept was conducted in Berlin with a Bubble Barrier of a length of 10 meters. The Bubble Barrier was then extensively tested in the water laboratory of Deltares. During the first pilot in November 2017, a 180 meters long Bubble Barrier in the river IJssel showed that the Bubble Barrier was capable of catching 86% of the test material. After this successful pilot, The Great Bubble Barrier joined a research project to assess the impact of the Bubble Barrier on microplastics with a size of 0.02 to 0.5 mm.
The first long-term Bubble Barrier in the world was placed in November 2019 in one of Amsterdam’s canals.
The impacted areas and population:
Their goal is to clean the local waterways in their city or region and protect the global ecosystem from plastic pollution. For now, The Great Bubble Barrier has impacted Amsterdam’s canals, where its system was first tested in November 2019. However, this project could be duplicated in any area of the world and could help solve the problem of plastic pollution in numerous rivers worldwide.
The obstacles and challenges
Since the plastic-problem is multi-faceted, it is hard to define who is to blame. This leaves a lot of stakeholders taking a passive stance towards addressing this problem. The severe impact of plastic on the environment leaves its mark on the land and in the water. They have yet to discover the ecological impact of the non-degradable plastics.
However, they can wait for this and act reactively. They seek the pioneers who want to address this problem instead of looking away, denying their part in this problem. By addressing this problem locally, they will set a new standard for the residents. They believe that confronting people with the caught plastic waste can help to evoke a behavioral change that is pervasive and sustainable. The end-users are not only trying to reduce their ecological footprint and achieve a clean environment for local residents but also take the lead in a global movement that addresses the plastic problem effectively.
Similar projects
The Widou Thiengoly multi-purpose gardens
Coumba Dady KA is fighting for positive change in Senegal through the creation of polyvalent gardens with fellow women. The garden’s final goal is to ensure food diet diversification and increased financial autonomy thanks to the engagement of these women. It’s inspiring!
The polyvalent gardens are parallel projects to the great green wall project in order to combat desertification. These gardens were set up and are managed in consultation with the women living in the villages across the Great Green Wall. These determined women have formed various Economic Interest Groups. The aim of these gardens is to allow the cultivation of fruits and vegetables throughout the year, to provide food security to different villages across the Great Green Wall.
These gardens should provide enough food for self-consumption as well as enabling villagers to diversify theIR diet. What’s more, they have the possibility to sell their surplus crops at weekly markets. This initiative thus enables the women to achieve a new social and financial autonomy, as well as to develop their expertise in agriculture.
Planeta Océano: protecting the Giant Manta
Kerstin Forsberg is determined in engaging coastal fishermen communities of Peru in protecting the giant manta ! To do so, she created the marine educator’s teacher network as well as participatory research or community-based manta ray ecotourism. Planeta Océano engages coastal communities in marine conservation through research, marine education and sustainable development initiatives. These initiatives include:
1. Participatory research and citizen science: Local volunteers (fishermen, children, youth, among others) actively investigate local ecosystems, fisheries, and marine species, thus supporting local management efforts. Projects have included assessing shark and ray fisheries, pioneering manta ray conservation in Peru, assessing Traditional Ecological Knowledge on critically endangered sawfish, and supporting Marine Protected Areas.
2. Marine education: Incorporating and institutionalizing marine education and Ocean Literacy. Projects have included setting up Peru’s “Marine Educators Teacher Network” with over 50 schools, leading incubators for youth-lead environmental initiatives, game-based education and their Connecting Schools program, which aims to bring together students across borders through online technology and community engagement.
3. Sustainable development: Fostering environmental entrepreneurship and market-based approaches that contribute to marine conservation and socio-economic development. For example, pioneering community-based manta ray ecotourism in Peru as an alternate livelihood for low-income fishermen and local artisans.
Ultimately, these multidisciplinary and participatory efforts serve as a platform to connect multiple sectors in marine conservation, thus bringing together government, academia, youth, children, local fishermen, and many others.
Sustainable Cupuaçu in the Amazon
The Sustainable Cupuaçu in the Amazon project, the result of a partnership established between the Klorane Botanical Foundation (KBF), L’Institut de Recherche Pierre Fabre (IRPF) and Beraca Institute for the Valorization of Sociobiodiversity (IB), was born with the intention of providing farmers and quilombola extractivists a new economic opportunity through the production of cupuaçu (Theobroma grandiflorum), a native species to the Amazon, through the Agroforestry System (SAF).
The project was conceived from KBF’s three missions: to protect; to explore; to educate. These missions were the guiding elements for the construction of the project’s objective and action areas, which have the following propositions:
PROTECT – Main element of the project that aims to protect the Amazon biome from the restoration of degraded areas through the implementation of agroforestry systems (SAF) in Bela Aurora Community. The project foresaw the planting of 3,000 feet of cupuaçu (in addition to other Integrated species) in the expectation of a production of around 6 tons of seeds in 3-4 years. The strategy adopted to achieve this objective is to transfer technology between family farmers in the community of Bela Aurora and the community of Santa Luzia, in Tomé Açu, which has a history of production in SAFs.
EXPLORE – The pillar aims to systematize and disseminate knowledge from the project’s learning and results, through scientific publications, congresses, etc.
EDUCATE – Consists on conducting workshops with children and young people from the Bela Aurora community, seeking to reinforce the element of environmental education in SAF cultures. This formal moment aims to help develop a more theoretical and critical perception of reality, focusing on the role of human beings in nature, the dynamics of trees in the forest and the importance of preserving biodiversity to maintain the balance of the biome. Within the initiatives aimed at implementing the SAFs, Six training workshops were planned, which involve activities to raise awareness of the importance of restoring degraded areas, preserving the environment and agro-ecological production with family farmers in Bela Aurora.
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