The process of converting human created trash of all types into energy as electricity, or synthetic fuel.
Current estimates show there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic waste in our oceans. 269,000 tons are estimated to be floating on the surface, with an additional four billion plastic microfibers per square kilometer of ocean are floating in the depths. Another estimate states that there will be more plastics in our oceans than fish by 2050. Countless other ocean waste has been dumped by us, and we may never know where most of it lies. This physical waste does not take into account the waste water effluents such as sewage and factory discharge, agrochemical runoff, and other synthetic chemicals we have poured into our oceans.
What is the primary reason we have let this happen? EarthCorp believes it to be due exclusively to economics. Money is made from producing and selling plastics of all types, but no money is made cleaning them up. Until now.
EarthCorp was originally founded in 2001 from a desire to clean up this ocean waste. Figuring out how to do it became the challenge. The idea of removing the waste and breaking it down by gasification, pyrolysis, plasma arc and some others is not a new concept, yet it has not happened because it costs money and does not make money. In late 2019 a practical technology was found with WPP Energy Gmbh . This technology has a high enough conversion rate to make the process economically appealing. From this came an idea to place decommissioned oil drilling platforms at the edges of the five great patches in the Atlantic and Pacfic oceans. Located inside the platform is a waste processing center where the Vorax system will convert the waste to syngas (synthetic gas/fuel). The fuel will be sold to passing ships such as commercial freighters, military vessels, and private ships. Freighters can leave port with less fuel, so they can carry more weight, which means more money. Military ships and private ships can save money and time by not going to port as often. The syngas can also be transported to shore for other uses. More importantly, everyone wins. We clean up our mess and make money doing it, and that money goes to fund further environmental regeneration projects to create more jobs and economic growth.
The next great challenge with ocean waste is creating a way to remove the massive amount of plastic that is deep below the surface. With the current model we can reach several meters below, but not beyond that. Much of the plastic has broken down to very small pieces and a lot of that is micro pellet sized. This tiny plastic is circulating in the oceans where it is picked up by plankton and fish, thus entering the life cycle. At this time there is no known way to effectively collect or remove this micro plastic, or plastics and other trash at depths. At EarthCorp we are confident there are many great young minds around the world that will find a solution, and we stand ready to implement it.
As part of the ocean waste cleanup, EarthCorp has developed a plan to remove hundreds of thousands of scrap tires dumped in the ocean off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.This site and project represent one of the many other types of ocean waste deposits beyond plastics.
Osborne Reef is the name given to an artificial reef program in the US State of Florida where, in 1972 over 2 million waste automotive tires were bundled together and dumped just offshore of Ft Lauderdale beach. Many good efforts to remove the tires have been undertaken over the years by several private enterprises as well as the State of Florida and the US military. An estimated 150,000 tires have been recovered, though any exact number is unknown. Thousands have been spread by tidal surges and hurricanes as far as Pensacola, Florida on the West coast, and North Carolina beaches.
The limiting factor in the removal is economics. No organization has the funds to remove them since they hold no economic value that would exceed the removal cost.
Osborne reef would follow the Vero Beach, Florida W2E Urban Farm project because it is very close geographically and it represents proof of concept of ocean waste cleanup using the W2E model. This project was envisioned and designed by EarthCorp Founder TY Cherry, an avid diver and ocean lover, and long time South Florida resident. Though It is not a direct profit center as all other EarthCorp models, it offers a major publicity opportunity. TY sees this as “Live Aid for the planet,” major publicity to bring attention to the cause and opportunities EarthCorp embodies. Economically speaking, this is viewed as a humanitarian environmental project that will draw global supporters and contributors. It is viable based on the simplicity and low cost of the actual removal. EarthCorp will provide the methodology and tools to lift the tires and get them to shore where a Vorax system will be brought to the site to completely dispose of the tires.
Although the Vero Beach project site is set up for accepting and storing the tires, the logistics make it impractical due to the overall labor and the added carbon footprint. Therefore EarthCorp will use a smaller Vorax unit designed to handle 5 Tons per Day (TPD) of waste, with no energy production. This is a smaller and simpler unit that can be repurposed after this project ends.
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