
Bubble barriers: a smart solution to plastic pollution in rivers - dwenzek
https://thegreatbubblebarrier.com/en/
======
crazygringo
This is fascinating and clever.

But the cynic inside me fears it would never make a difference. First of all,
one common statistic is that 90% of trash in the ocean that comes from people
dumping it (in rivers) comes from just 10 rivers, all in China/Asia.

And if they cared about the problem, they'd already be doing something about
it. But it seems like they don't. Because the real solution there is the same
as what is done in the first world -- to implement actual municipal trash
pickup and urban trashcans etc. If they can't even do that, I have a hard time
believing they'll bother with "bubble barriers".

So this seems like something first-world countries would implement... but
that's not where the problem is.

But second, it's also common to hear that a large majority of _overall_ ocean
plastic comes from discarded industrial fishing gear -- nets and the like.
Which this obviously does nothing for.

So while still very clever, I sadly don't think this could ever make a
difference. We need to actually solve the much messier human problems of
installing trash collection around the world and figuring out ways to monitor
and punish fishers who discard their equipment.

~~~
cocoggu
I think there is now a real will from the chinese government to limit plastic
pollution.

For example, waste sorting started in Shanghai a year ago and started in
Beijing last June [0].

This is not the usual waste sorting we are experiencing in Europe, for
example, since you need to decline your identity and not make any mistake
while sorting or you may get charged.

Probably a bit too invasive (this is China after all) but more thorough for
what I consider a good cause.

Besides, the first bans on plastic use will take effect on January [1]. This
is only for small items now, but this is a first step, and it also includes
production of these items, which is especially impressive considering China
supremacy on the production lines.

[0]
[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3016801/shan...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3016801/shanghai-
begins-new-waste-sorting-era-china-eyes-cleaner-image)

[1] [https://www.scmp.com/business/china-
business/article/3101241...](https://www.scmp.com/business/china-
business/article/3101241/no-plastic-bags-straws-or-hotel-shampoo-
bottles-2025-china)

~~~
foofoo55
You mentioned Shanghai and Beijing, but note that sorting waste isn't new to
the country. I was part of a team that installed a single-stream waste sorting
system in China in 2007, prior to the Olympics. It was a very impressive
system where all garbage would enter at one end and a large array of machines
and people would sort the garbage into recyclables, compost, and the rest for
an incinerator. It used all the latest tech, mainly from North America.

~~~
baybal2
I think current garbage sorting is waaay too inefficient, and this is
fundamentally limits the recyclability rates.

This is especially obvious when you talk about stuff made of a lot of
different materials.

Picking such things apart for different material streams is impossible to
scale.

I was thinking, what if governments were mandating mandatory chemical tagging
of all common materials, so you can just shred everything, and then separate
materials using machines which can distinguish chemical tags.

~~~
lallysingh
I think it might be easier to just have machines learn to recognize the top
99.9% of all things thrown away and leave the rest to a a small group (or
landfill).

~~~
baybal2
The problem, as I stated above, is that you will be landfilling significantly
more than 0.01%.

There are tons of unrecyclable stuff in regular household garbage. For
example, a packaging made of two incompatible in recycling methods plastics
are a waste.

~~~
lallysingh
I'm describing an approach to sorting. Your response isn't about sorting.

------
jackinloadup
Interesting, this claims that fish and other wildlife can pass through but
they don't seem to explain how it's different from bubble barriers used to
deter fish from passing into underwater construction zones related to drilling
or pile driving [1].

[1] [https://www.newnybridge.com/protecting-underwater-
wildlife-b...](https://www.newnybridge.com/protecting-underwater-wildlife-
bubble-curtains-reduce-underwater-pressure-waves-2-2/)

~~~
kungtotte
In that article the primary purpose seems to be to reduce soundwaves rather
than preventing fish from passing through, so both sources are in agreement
there that it lessens soundwaves.

Also the pressures could be different. It's not hard to imagine that higher
pressure would act as a bigger deterrent to passing through, so maybe that's
what they're using at the construction site?

Both the bubble barrier page and the article you linked are fairly short on
specifics though, which is a shame. It wouldn't be that hard to write out some
pressures...

~~~
jackinloadup
Agree, I hope it's a possible solution. Just thought it was interesting after
hearing about the technology a few days ago in relation to sound suppression
and rocket launches.

------
eloff
How does this let fish past? Dolphins and whales use bubble corrals as a
fishing technique specifically because fish don't like crossing it. I believe
it's also being tested as an alternative to shark nets. Presumably this would
be a more intense bubble wall, which I would expect to seriously impede the
free movement of marine species.

Maybe if it were suspended near the surface of the river so fish could swim
under it. That probably wouldn't let much plastic through, as this would only
really be effective on floating plastics anyway.

~~~
drran
See it:

    
    
      >|     |
      >|  |  |
      >   |   
      >|  |  |
      >|     |

~~~
robocat
Although in the video they don’t have breaks and they have it angled to steer
the rubbish towards a trap: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_KwF-
gf0S0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_KwF-gf0S0)

But they could add breaks:

    
    
      > \
      >  \
      >   \   \  
      >        \
      >         \
      >          [rubbishtrap]
    

The biggest problem I could see is that it also traps leaves etc which you
would ideally let past as they surely are needed for the river mouth
ecosystem? Edit: also what if most of the trash is during storm events - the
system wouldn’t work if that were the case.

------
jorge-d
I think the best solution to avoid plastic pollution is to tax it heavily
where it does not make sense, whether it's single use or not.

Also I believe a nice solution to plastic recycling would be for legislators
to implement a standardisation of all the bottles / food packaging / etc. so
that they all use the exact same type of plastic.

Then once we stop dropping tons or plastic on our ocean and polluting our
soils with it, we might end up with a quite-clean environment in the next
50-70y (and pray that there are no long term effects on plastic
contamination).

But in the end, the best solution to plastic is definitely to stop using it.

------
cagenut
This is interesting. There's a related "startup" tackling the problem from a
different angle: [https://theoceancleanup.com/](https://theoceancleanup.com/)

They did some research and found that something like the top 5 or top 10
rivers in the world are the source of 80+% of the plastic in the ocean. So
they came up with this plastic-filtering-barge design with hopes of placing
them at key points in all the major rivers. So far four are built and in
operation. Absolutely not a solution but a ton of harm reduction.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/TheOceanCleanup/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/TheOceanCleanup/videos)

~~~
jiofih
Both of them hail from Amsterdam! I imagine the bubble idea might have come
out of seeing the ocean cleanup barges in operation - they have the problem of
interfering with boat traffic where deployed.

~~~
rzwitserloot
The Ocean Cleanup hails from Delft. It was founded there, and the concept was
'invented' whilst the inventors were busy with an Aerospace Engineering course
at the Delft University.

Different province and about an hour's travel south from Amsterdam

I guess the frisian province is 'Amsterdam Lake District', rotterdam is
'Amsterdam Harbour', The Hague is 'Amsterdam Government Plaza', and Delft is
just 'Amsterdam - Burials of Royals + that place with the solar boats and cars
and the plastic barges dept' :P

NB: I think that "Amsterdam Lake District" thing really is how its marketed
from time to time to attempt to distribute tourism more throughout the
country. The rest a bit more tongue in cheek.

------
cocoapuffs7
If this is the main idea, move it further up on the page if it doesn't break
your design goals. I skipped the initial text and went right to it.

[https://thegreatbubblebarrier.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/03...](https://thegreatbubblebarrier.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/03/Side-view-TGBB.gif)

Great idea. Has it been tested?

~~~
DoingIsLearning
They claim they are working with Deltares which if you are not familiar is a
reference research institute in the Netherlands for Waterway management.

On top of the principle you linked I think an important feature of their
concept is that the bubble barrier is diagonal to the waterway so that the
debrie is accumulated and guided to a single collection point on the river
bank.

------
luckylion
> How much energy does a Bubble Barrier use?

> The Bubble Barrier uses compressed air to create the bubble curtain.
> Depending on the scale and length of the Bubble Barrier, this is done by
> means of a compressor. The length of the Bubble Barrier has a significant
> influence on the necessary energy usage. Our Bubble Barrier uses much less
> energy than bubble curtains that are used to separate fresh from salt water
> or to prevent oil spills.

Based on them explicitly not wanting to give any numbers and comparing it to
much larger and more difficult operations, I'm guessing this is the main
issue. It may well work, but costs a lot of energy. Doing that in NW Europe
feels like spending a lot to achieve a little, because plastic going into the
ocean is a) not primarily from rivers and b) among that which is delivered via
rivers, it's not primarily from rivers in Europe.

~~~
giarc
There are a lot of companies developing river turbines that possible could
complement this well. I have no idea if they produce the right amount of power
though.

~~~
luckylion
Good point, though you probably need a strong flow for turbines, which will be
an issue for the bubble barrier. And for large rivers that are also deep (i.e.
any river that is used for larger scale shipping), the infrastructure seems
extreme.

It's one thing to handle a 10m wide canal that's 2m deep, it's quite another
to install that system on a river that's 800m across and 10m deep. I believe
we'll quickly reach a level where it's not economical to do put a lot of
energy into it to catch what little waste there is. On the other hand, maybe
there are positive side effects, more oxygen in the water?

------
witherk
Interesting Idea! This seems like an elegant but somewhat expensive solution.
Does the power consumed by pumping tons of air 24/7 offset the ecological
gains by the system? If this can stop microscopic plastic than it would
probably also stop microscopic creatures. Are there shore based ecosystems
that rely on those creatures coming to shore, or vice versa?

Anyways still seems worth trying.

~~~
jiofih
If it’s wind / solar, absolutely. A compressor for that canal run is probably
using 1-2KW/h, comparable to a small shop. If the compressor itself is cooled
by the water you’re even putting back some of the sun or wind energy that
would have gone into it :)

~~~
MereInterest
Your units are wonky. I'll assume you mean 1-2 kW, a unit of power output.
kW/h would be a rate of increase of power (e.g. "The generator is producing
500 kW now, and can safely ramp up at a rate of 100 kW/h.")

~~~
badwolf
in the US Kilowatt-hour is commonly used like that, and not as a rate of
change - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt-
hour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt-hour)

~~~
toast0
A kWh is not a kW/h. Also, a device used continuously would use a number of
kWh over a time period... So kWh/h or kW. If you were discussing a process,
you might say it takes so many kWh per cycle, like charging a battery or
producing an item, etc.

------
spodek
Future generations will look at our wanton use of single-use plastic like we
look at leaded gasoline or cigarettes and wonder what took us so long to
legislate banning poisoning our environment. A bubble barrier moves the
plastic around, it doesn't decrease its production.

If it helps in some small way relative to decreasing plastic production, great
-- no need to let the perfect be the enemy of the good -- but let's keep it in
context of decreasing production.

Also, technical solutions to social and behavioral problems tend to create
unintended side-effect. Have we considered them?

------
aaron695
What's the children's book, by a classic SciFi artist in the 70s-ish with well
done living in the future illustrations.

One was an underwater habitat and all the fish were kept in vertical cages
made of bubbles?

It makes me laugh my childhood wonder turns out to be real, except it's for
rubbish.

[edit] The Usborne Book of the Future (1979) had it, but I'm sure it's not the
only one - P16 P17 -
[http://calameo.download/00081642432fc0bfded26](http://calameo.download/00081642432fc0bfded26)
All new ideas are old.

------
kuu
I wonder how this affects other stuff such as plankton or other kind of
nutrients...

------
Aunche
It's unfortunate that these "sexy" solutions get more attention than practical
ones. Trash localized in a smaller body of water isn't much better than trash
in the ocean, especially since a clogged up river will eventually start
leaking trash. The most effective way to reduce ocean trash in the ocean is to
build proper waste management infrastructure in developing countries. The only
NGO I can find that does this is WasteAid.

[https://wasteaid.org](https://wasteaid.org)

~~~
Retric
The bubbles are only part of the solution. You still need a fairly
straightforward extraction method and a landfill or other long term disposal
method. This might add up to ~5 dump trucks an hour worth of trash for extreme
rivers, but that’s not all that expensive.

------
tjansen
I think this may be a good solution for those countries where trash more or
less accidentally ends up in rivers. But what percentage of trash ends up
accidentally in the sea, and how much trash is intentionally dumped because
it's cheaper or easier? I would assume that's far less than the 8 billion
kilos per year quoted on the page.

------
WhompingWindows
There's already an existing solution for this purpose:
[https://www.mrtrashwheel.com/](https://www.mrtrashwheel.com/)

~~~
drfrank
That handles plastic that's already floating, whereas this claims to bring
plastic to the surface.

The two solutions seem complementary.

------
sandworm101
I could see this working in a shallow stream meandering through the
countryside. I don't see this being effective in a deep/fast river. What do
those bubble nets look like in a river 50+ feet deep and moving a several mph?
Remember that the bubbles get bigger as they rise. I don't think many fish
will be happy to swim through a maelstrom of compressed air rushing from giant
pipes on the bottom.

~~~
giarc
You could create steps so to speak. So across the river there would be bubble
lines that are only 20% or so of the span. Then the plastic would step down
until it reaches the other side and fish could swim around the bubble lines.

I realized I probably didn't describe it well... he's a drawing of what I mean
[https://imgur.com/a/n9PdT0L](https://imgur.com/a/n9PdT0L)

------
dpix
Doesn't this just encourage more plastic dumping into waterways? Now you can
write it off because "it wont harm fish anymore"

Lets create systems where we don't need to dump plastic in waterways at all.

~~~
csours
"Let's create systems where we don't need to use
firewalls/authentication/application patches/defensive programming"

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Defense in depth is a winning strategy.

To be clear: we should also not be polluting/littering/etc. That's part of
defense in depth.

------
taf2
Would love to see this in action in the chesapeake bay on the east coast.

------
GordonS
Interesting! I spent some time recently looking into technical solutions for
marine aquaculture industry problems, and I saw the same concept proposed as a
preventative measure for salmon farms, to reduce sea lice infestation. It was
referred to as a "bubble curtain", or something like that. IIRC, I may have
also seen it proposed as a measure against harmful algae blooms (HABs).

------
amelius
Can this be dangerous to swim through? I imagine that bubble-water has a very
low specific weight, causing people to go under.

------
nabla9
It would be better to have some kind of deposit system.

Any plastic or plastic product importer must pay deposit per weigh of plastic.
When used plastic is returned for recycling/burning etc. that deposit is paid
to whoever returns it. This way waste plastic would have a price that would
make it worth not to throw it away.

------
Kaibeezy
Solidly into "why didn't I think of that" territory.

Who's got other examples? I'll go first:

In my kitchen, I have a coffee can full of ordinary plastic clothespegs/pins
that I use to clip bags shut. They work so much better than occlupanids or
even purpose-made bag clips, whether you fold or spin the bag.

~~~
jiofih
Why not go the extra mile and use wooden pegs. Less plastic!

~~~
atoav
I am ging to be that guy now: he already _has_ those plastic pegs. Throwing
them away and getting wooden ones may _look_ more environmentally friendly,
but it isn't.

Avoiding to buy plastic in the future is a good idea. But throwing away
perfectly fine plastic stuff you have to replace it with wood stuff isn't.

~~~
TeMPOraL
That's the case in my home. We have some supply of plastic clothespins bought
years ago, and some of them just slowly migrated to the kitchen. We aren't
planning to buy any kind of new ones any time soon.

------
latchkey
Related: [https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/09/selfish-pochien-
chen/](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/09/selfish-pochien-chen/)

------
erwinkle
This technology is already implemented and being used in harbors (I've seen it
in Florida) to keep the seaweed OUT of the marina. It was very impressive how
well it worked

------
mleonhard
You can see it work in this video: [https://youtu.be/n_KwF-
gf0S0](https://youtu.be/n_KwF-gf0S0)

------
crazynick4
If it blocks plastic, what else might it block?

------
balthasar
Inspired by a Sonic the Hedgehog level.

------
wazoox
How does it compare or complement the "river cleaner" from the Ocean Cleanup?

------
scott31
Off topic, why is bubble sort called bubble sort? Is it because bubbles are
slow?

~~~
ORioN63
Without looking further, I would say it's because elements bubble up as
they're sorted.

Edit: Wikipedia [1] seems to agree:

    
    
        The algorithm, which is a comparison sort, is named for the way smaller or larger elements "bubble" to the top of the list.
    

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_sort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_sort)

------
jtxx
this rhyme is going to be stuck in my head for a while

