A big thank you to SURF’s Vice President, Sylvia Rathmell (Woodard & Curran), for tipping us off on how bubble curtain technology typically used to contain oil spills is being modified and used globally as a barrier for plastic waste. In Amsterdam, a bubble barrier in a canal has removed 180 tons of pollutants since its installation in 2019.

How does it work? Perforated rubber tubing is placed at the bottom of a waterway at an angle with the current. The tubing is connected to a pump that pushes air into the tube and creates bubbles 24 hours/day, seven days/week. The bubbles come to the surface with plastic waste and trash, which is directed to a catchment area and picked up by barges every day. This design has been replicated and installed in the Ave River in a town along the northern coast of Portugal. Click here to learn more about this design.

Other designs are being applied at various locations around the globe, including a planned installation in the Grand River in Lansing, Michigan (click here). In South Australia, a bubble curtain has been installed as a “just-in-case” measure. The hope is that the deployed curtain will protect over 50,000 cuttlefish eggs and hatchlings from an existing algal bloom moving toward the area. Click here for more information.