Last week, The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organisation headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that develops technologies to rid plastic from oceans, officially deployed its first solar-powered cleanup boat/system in the Chao Phraya River at the Commemoration of His Majesty the King Rama X's 6th Cycle Birthday Park in Bangkok's Bang Kho Laem district.
It's a joint effort with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, The Coca-Cola Company, the Embassy of the Netherlands and more. The project will see Interceptor 019 extract trash while helping us learn more about plastic pollution in Bangkok’s rivers and canals.
Interceptor 019 is part of The Ocean Cleanup’s long-term partnership with The Coca-Cola Company, which began in 2021, to support innovative technologies to help prevent plastic from entering the world’s oceans from rivers.
Stationed near the park, Interceptor 019's operation covers a 16km stretch of the Chao Phraya where 61 canals flow into it, often transporting plastic trash with them. Studies of the trash collected will shed light on the composition of plastic floating in the river and how to intercept (thus, its name) trash before it reaches the last 50km of the river where it enters the ocean.
Interceptor 019 in Bangkok is The Ocean Cleanup’s fifth Interceptor across Southeast Asia after Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia (where there are two).
Boyan Slat, founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, said, “Interceptor 019 marks a significant milestone in closing the tap on plastic pollution entering the oceans from Bangkok. This deployment is only the first step, alongside the Bangkok authorities and our other partners, in cleaning up the Chao Phraya. The lessons we learn here about eliminating ocean plastic emissions from major cities will be invaluable for other Interceptor projects around the world as we scale up our Rivers programme.’’
Interceptor 019 will be collecting trash until January next year. The Chao Phraya is the 15th river in the world where Interceptor is deployed.
