A team of 12 students from Quebec, Canada’s University of Sherbrooke have successfully invented a beach vacuum cleaner called Hoola One, which sucks up microplastics and returns the sand to the beach.
Sam Duval, Hoola One co-founder said: “We investigated a bit and realized that there was no machine in the whole world to do this type of work. So we told ourselves: ‘We will invent it’ and we did it.”
Together the team realized that the plastic would float. So, they built a machine with a large hose and connected it to a big water tank. From there, the sand sinks and leaves the microplastics to float on the surface.
To test the machine, they chose Kamilo Beach on the big island in Hawaii, known to be one of the dirtiest in the world. The testing was a success. This is an important invention because as Duval says; “All the microplastic, you can’t pick them up with your hands — it would take too long.”
The team has left their invention as a donation to the island so locals can continue to use it for beach cleans. The prototype model they built is a very large machine, which must be transported on a trailer. Given the success of the project, they hope to raise money for smaller versions of the vacuum to make them available for use around the world.
“No more plastic on the beaches — that’s the ultimate goal,” said Duval. “We want to use our engineering skills to help to save the planet.”
As someone who has done many beach clean-ups, I have seen firsthand the amount of micro and macro plastics that get washed up on shore every day. This invention will certainly be able to help to not only cut the time it takes to sift through the sand, but will also be much more efficient.
