BUFFALO, N.Y. — A technology that's been used in other parts of the world to remove trash from waterways is now being deployed along Buffalo's waterfront, with two "Seabins" installed at Buffalo Harbor State Park.
Seabins sort of work like a large pool skimmer, where a motor creates a vortex to suck debris out of the water and into a catch bag, before pushing the clean water back out.
"It's not just about putting a bin in the water to collect unsightly trash," Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper executive director Jill Jedlicka said Saturday at Buffalo Harbor State Park. "It's also to learn from it and help educate the community to manage and understand the source of the problem in order to attack it from all angles."
Each Seabin can catch up to eight pounds of trash a day. In other places where they've been used, the most common items caught are microplastics and cigarette butts.
Each unit costs about $4,000.
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