FALMOUTH – Island Queen Ferry has purchased Cape Cod’s first Seabin.
A Seabin is a floating garbage bin that sits in the water at water level on a float dock and moves up and down with the range of tide, collecting floating garbage.
“It’s almost like a floating trash can of sorts,” said Michael Reposa, manager at the Island Queen Ferry in Falmouth.
“Almost like how a pool skimmer works.”
The Seabin was invented by two Australian boat builders, Andrew Turton and Peter Ceglinski.
It collects trash, oil, fuel, and detergents from the water.
The machine draws water in from the surface and passes it through a catch bag inside the Seabin.
The water is then pumped back into Falmouth Harbor, leaving litter and debris trapped in the catch bag to be disposed of properly.
Due to the suction of the water, even items too large for the catch bag stay in place next to the machine and can be scooped up by hand or with a net.
“Anything up to two millimetres as far as microplastics goes it’ll catch as well, which is big because that’s what the fish eat and that’s what we eat,” said Reposa.
“It’s already caught a significant amount of trash in like a week.”
Reposa said that the Seabin does suck up seaweed which has been an issue.
However, he said that the amount of seaweed in Falmouth Harbor is expected to greatly decline as the summer continues and that it should not be a major issue moving forward.
One Seabin can catch more than one ton of floating debris per year.
The catch bag has a capacity of 44 pounds and can be changed multiple times a day.
The most common catch includes food containers, cigarette butts and plastic items.
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