The Coca-Cola Company has joined with Dutch nonprofit environmental technology company The Ocean Cleanup to prevent plastic waste from entering the ocean by intercepting it in rivers.
The partnership will leverage Coca-Cola’s scale and global network integrated with The Ocean Cleanup’s technology and data-driven solutions, including a high-tech vessel called the Interceptor, to clean up 15 rivers by the end of 2022, Coca-Cola said in a release.
“At Coca-Cola, we have teams on the ground who will support the deployment of new Interceptors in rivers around the world, as well as the processing and recycling of the waste collected,” Brian Smith, president and chief operating officer of The Coca-Cola Company, said in the release. “Working together, we believe we can have real impact. That’s exciting: it’s something we know our employees in every corner of the world will get behind, by helping to support the local implementation work and as ambassadors for the wider mission.”
The innovative technology called the Interceptor makes use of the river current to propel plastic waste, guided by a barrier, to the opening of the Interceptor, Coca-Cola said. Owing to the vessel’s catamaran design, the water flows through the system, carrying the plastic onto a conveyor belt and, from there, to a shuttle that automatically deposits it in six dumpsters before the vessel returns to shore for recycling.
Each Interceptor is capable of extracting 50,000 kg of trash per day, according to The Ocean Cleanup website. Two Interceptors included in the partnership have already been deployed -- in Can Tho in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam and in Santo Domingo, The Dominican Republic.
The two organizations will work together to seek more implementing partners and investments needed to roll out more Interceptors, Coca-Cola said. Other goals of the partnership are to secure licensing support and to deploy River Monitoring System (RMS) cameras for more river pollution analyses.
The partnership also supports the goals of Coca-Cola’s World Without Waste plan, in which the company will endeavor to collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one it sells by 2030, Coca-Cola said.