Cruisers Forum
 


Reply
  This discussion is proudly sponsored by:
Please support our sponsors and let them know you heard about their products on Cruisers Forums. Advertise Here
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Rate Thread Display Modes
Old 11-10-2020, 01:41   #1
Registered User
 
Alan Mighty's Avatar

Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Moreton Bay
Boat: US$4,550 of lead under a GRP hull with cutter rig
Posts: 2,135
Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

Suzuki Motor Corporation proposes in 2021 to retail water-cooled outboard engines that have an additional device that filters and removes microplastics from the seawater.

For an English version of the news story: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles...0m/0bu/044000c
__________________
“Fools say that you can only gain experience at your own expense, but I have always contrived to gain my experience at the expense of others.” - Otto von Bismarck
Alan Mighty is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-10-2020, 03:42   #2
Senior Cruiser
 
GordMay's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Thunder Bay, Ontario - 48-29N x 89-20W
Boat: (Cruiser Living On Dirt)
Posts: 49,082
Images: 241
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

Suzuki Clean Ocean Project
https://www.globalsuzuki.com/marine/environment/

I wonder how much waste the device is expected to collect, and how/where the user is expected to dispose of it?
__________________
Gord May
"If you didn't have the time or money to do it right in the first place, when will you get the time/$ to fix it?"



GordMay is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-10-2020, 05:45   #3
Moderator
 
tkeithlu's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Carrabelle, Florida
Boat: Fiberglas shattering 44' steel trawler
Posts: 6,083
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

I join in Gord's mild scepticism. It took resources to manufacture this filter, which then pulls very small amounts of plastic from a very large ocean. How many would it take to even remove the plastic from the river going by our dock?
__________________
Never let anything mechanical know that you are in a hurry.
tkeithlu is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-10-2020, 17:02   #4
Registered User
 
Alan Mighty's Avatar

Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Moreton Bay
Boat: US$4,550 of lead under a GRP hull with cutter rig
Posts: 2,135
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

Quote:
Originally Posted by GordMay View Post
I wonder how much waste the device is expected to collect, and how/where the user is expected to dispose of it?
I think GordMay's second question is easily handled: microplastics removed from the filter can be discarded to landfill.

That at least removes 'some' microplastics from 'some' part of the coastal water.

I note that scientists have reported microplastics incorporated into the musculature of fish. That suggests that the natural predators of fish, including humans, are ingesting microplastics from fish.

As for tkeithlu's notion that we're talking about 'very small amounts of microplastics' from a 'very large ocean,' I concur.

And that puts me, and possibly you, in existential angst. What to do about the problem? The problem of microplastics seems intractable. And the efforts of even all boaters on the planet, if they were to embrace the Suzuki initiative, seem inadquate.

Scott Adams portrayed that hopelessness perfectly, with the all-knowing Dogbert dealing with the bewildered consumer who knows not what to do:

https://dilbert.com/strip/2019-12-12
__________________
“Fools say that you can only gain experience at your own expense, but I have always contrived to gain my experience at the expense of others.” - Otto von Bismarck
Alan Mighty is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-10-2020, 23:22   #5
Registered User

Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Boat: Island Packet 40
Posts: 6,415
Images: 7
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

Quote:
Originally Posted by GordMay View Post
Suzuki Clean Ocean Project
https://www.globalsuzuki.com/marine/environment/

I wonder how much waste the device is expected to collect, and how/where the user is expected to dispose of it?
Easy one Gord. Probably not much but you collect it to feel good then throw it back to recycle it and feel good about that.

It takes a fair few charts to get all the way around the continent of Australia and years ago I decided to pack a bunch of them away until I might need them again. I rolled them up then put them in some big polly garbage bags neatly taped into cylinder and stowed them away.

A few years later I was spring cleaning and found that the chart rolls were no longer wrapped in poly, it was all in flakes in the bottom of the storage space. The bags were the degradable ones and I had forgotten it.

This environmental consciences stuff can bite you in the butt occasionally.
__________________
Satiriker ist verboten, la conformité est obligatoire
RaymondR is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-10-2020, 23:33   #6
Registered User

Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Live aboard in Simonstown (Cape Town) - now Grenada having crossed the Atlantic.
Boat: 1986 Bruce Roberts 45 raised saloon
Posts: 374
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

Not a bad idea if the concept was rolled out to include all commercial shipping. Give shipping co's a tax incentive to filter micro plastics (and dispose of correctly - whatever that may be).
markcouz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2020, 01:13   #7
Registered User

Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Boat: Island Packet 40
Posts: 6,415
Images: 7
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

Quote:
Originally Posted by markcouz View Post
Not a bad idea if the concept was rolled out to include all commercial shipping. Give shipping co's a tax incentive to filter micro plastics (and dispose of correctly - whatever that may be).
That's a pretty good idea.

One of those monster 300,000 ton ore carriers would pump a monstrous amount of water through it's engine cooling system and you could filter the discharge. Put a small levy on the plastics manufacturers and use it to pay the shipping companies for every ton of plastics they recover. One of them would probably filter as much water as all the outboards combined and there are hundreds of them and the container ships and probably thousands if you include the general freighters.
__________________
Satiriker ist verboten, la conformité est obligatoire
RaymondR is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2020, 08:26   #8
Registered User

Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 458
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

Suspicion this is partially a marketing tool, but in third world countries , in particular Asian Rim , the outboard is popular and growing, thereby yes, the theory is logical. Will the filter be useful (or discarded ) is questionable as well will it plug with other sediments and trash engine? But give them credit to at least trying to put forth a solution.
boat driver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2020, 08:27   #9
Registered User

Join Date: Oct 2019
Posts: 756
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

At least it is a start.
Stewie12 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2020, 08:54   #10
Registered User

Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: New York, New York
Boat: Dufour Safari 27'
Posts: 1,907
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

I applaud the attempt however I feel it is misguided. There will never be a practical way to collect the plastic that is in the ocean. There are many millions of tons of plastic that enter the ocean every year. The various studies report that ten rivers account for well over 90% of all plastics that enter the ocean, and of those, 8 are in Asia and if I recall correctly, half of those are in communist China.

So far, all projects to collect ocean plastic at best collect a few thousand tons at best. The far better approach is to stop the plastic from entering the rivers at their source, to introduce biodegradable plastics, and to replace plastics with other materials that don't have the plastic issues that are causing problems.

This idea is nothing more than marketing. Actually, it is worse than that. It adds needless complexity to the engine, consumes additional resources, and adds unnecessary expense and complexity to a product.
ArmyDaveNY is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2020, 09:28   #11
Registered User

Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: On board
Boat: Tom Colvin Gazelle 42ft
Posts: 325
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

Interesting idea. It would be nice to have some data by which to judge. My gut feeling is that removal thus is totally negligible but it is a feeling only. Surely sucking up a few millions of litres and filtering it probably ineffectively, is less than a drop in the three dimensional ocean? What is the total volume of water in the world and how much of it is used one way or another? And how effective is the filtering especially of small, very small, particles.

Much better to stop it at the source just like preventing the entry of CO2 and CH4 into the atmosphere is the preferred approach to prevent further global warming.

Still someone was thinking with an open mind.

Jim sv GAIA
Gaia is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2020, 10:15   #12
Registered User

Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: On board
Boat: Tom Colvin Gazelle 42ft
Posts: 325
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

I looked up the world's volume of water and it is 1.4 x 10^21 litres. That is a lot of water! To filter it effectively one needs to make a number of assumptions and one needs to know how much water is used in one way or another and returned. I am not qualified for either of those tasks nor do I have any idea how efficiently say the Suzuki type filter and others would work (like those on commercial ships or at power stations etc) but perhaps someone might.

As others have said and assuming microplastics are distributed uniformly it seems like a hopeless task.

Jim sv GAIA
Gaia is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2020, 10:18   #13
Registered User

Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: Rochester, NY
Boat: Chris Craft 381 Catalina
Posts: 6,190
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

Reducing or eliminating plastic input is certainly far more important. But if we can also remove some of the existing plastic with minimal impact from doing it then it's hard to say that we shouldn't also be doing it.
rslifkin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2020, 10:27   #14
Registered User

Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: San Francisco
Boat: Morgan 382
Posts: 2,839
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

What about plastic that is shed from the water pump on the engine? Regardless of how much seawater is filtered, isn't it responsible to filter the discharge to prevent adding more plastic? One could argue it's a small amount, but that argument could be made of much of the plastic waste in the oceans, certainly a couple decades ago when single use plastics took off.
__________________
-Warren
wholybee is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2020, 11:21   #15
Senior Cruiser
 
BlackHeron's Avatar

Join Date: Jan 2016
Boat: Bathtub
Posts: 889
Images: 19
Re: Outboard engines: removing microplastics from the sea with each use

Ridiculous.

This is why I rarely spend my money buying anything new when perfectly good items made in better times are cheaper, less-complicated, and finally more robust because of this.

They don't build 'em like they used to. My 25 year old 2-stroke outboard is still going strong and will probably outlast many (if not most) new 4-strokes sold in the USA today even with what life still remains in it after decades of previous loyal service.

A little bit of smoke -or a chain of disposable 4-strokes getting landfilled instead. Not to mention all that filthy gear oil that may or may bot be disposed of properly in many corners of the planet or gets slowly spilled by failing gaskets and seals as the machine ages.

I refuse to pay the "virtue-signalling tax" on these new "improved" greenwashed machines.
BlackHeron is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
engine, outboard

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Microplastics in the sea Hardhead Our Community 466 13-01-2024 02:23
For Sale: Yanmar 4jh3e diesel engines 2 each soverel48 Classifieds Archive 4 19-06-2013 03:53

Advertise Here


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 20:25.


Google+
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Social Knowledge Networks
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.

ShowCase vBulletin Plugins by Drive Thru Online, Inc.