As scientists strive to control the dangerous consequences of climate change, new research is headed into tackling plastic that is damaging the marine ecosystems across the world. Europe is now looking at ways to control the marine menace using space-based technologies.

The European Space Agency (ESA) recently dumped marine plastic litter into a realistic scale model of the Atlantic Ocean to test technologies that can be used to analyse and control marine pollution. ESA antenna engineer Peter de Maagt, who is overseeing the campaign said, “Our goal here is to answer a few fundamental questions.”

Scientists estimate that an average 10 million tons of plastic enter the ocean annually equivalent to a fresh truckload of plastic dumped every minute. However, scientists know only about one per cent of this polluting material as to what happens with it once it’s dumped into open seas. Satellite monitoring might in future help track its extent, and see where it goes if it can be proven to work in practice, the ESA said.

HUNTING MARINE PLASTIC

The test was conducted at the Deltares research institute near Delft in the Netherlands, inside its Atlantic Basin Facility. The facility is equipped with wave generators to create realistic deep water waves which can be found in the ocean.

Researchers said that plastics disturb the ocean wave patterns and the satellite measures that disturbance. The test, which will be completed by January 2022 will provide a new way to monitor plastic waste using satellites already in orbit. “If not, a decision could be made to produce a dedicated satellite.”

“To start with, can we detect floating plastics with space-based monitoring at all? And if so, which techniques show the most promise, at what frequency and with what sensitivity? Up until now researchers have had general gut feelings about what might work the best, but we are working to remove any guesswork,” Peter de Maagt added.

The plastic used in the wave experiment bags, bottles, marine nets and ropes, cutlery and Styrofoam balls along with non-plastic items to mimic actual distribution found at sea including cigarette ends.

RESULTS LOOKS PROMISING

The analysis of initial data from the research looked promising after the first test campaign lasted for two weeks where researchers began with a lot of floating plastic and no waves, moving to reduce the overall plastic amount. Researchers employed radar remote sensing along with optical instrumentation to study the changes in waveforms.

Teams from the University of Alberta in Canada and Technical University Delft in the Netherlands attempted to better quantify the wave-damping effect of marine plastic litter. “The initial results look promising, meaning that under certain circumstances the teams did receive useable signals, but there is a lot of analysis still to be performed. We aim to use the time between this test campaign and the follow-up, due to take place early next year, to identify gaps in knowledge that need further focus,” Peter de Maagt said in a statement.