On board the EMERGENCY ship Life Support, the Ecospray system for microplastics removal
Ecospray has studied and developed a solution to deal with this problem
As part of the EMERGENCY FRIEND program, Ecospray has donated a system that allows microplastics removal to the Life Support ship, dedicated to the search and rescue activity in the central Mediterranean.
Presented in Genoa on 20 and 21 October with an open day of visits to the ship and understanding of how rescue operations are handled at sea, on the 7th of November the ship Life Support will depart on a mission, equipped with the new Ecospray system. Human rights and protection of the marine environment are two highly significant issues and Ecospray has decided to contribute to such an important cause with its know-how and experience in the environmental protection field.
“The protection of the environment and human life at sea are the fundamental principles that inspire us, and we hope to be able to contribute more and more in this sense” said Franco Porcellacchia, CEO of Ecospray.
The phenomenon of microplastics in the marine environment is an increasingly widespread problem since plastic waste dispersed in the sea fragments into smaller and smaller particles (less than a millimeter) which, remaining suspended in water, enter the food chain of the small marine fauna.
Ecospray has studied and developed a solution to deal with this problem: an onboard system based on different filtration stages, up to the finest 10µm, which withdraws sea water and returns it cleaner to the environment by eliminating up to 30% of the microplastics most dangerous to health.
The operation process is very simple: a pump collects sea water during navigation and pumps it to a first automatic filter; if the filtrate is recirculated, the resulting material is filtered again by a bag filter which, once full, will allow the recovery and disposal of the microplastics. The clean water is then returned to the sea.
Currently being installed on Life Support, the Ecospray system will be operated during the ship’s activities, in the cruise phase.
Life Support is an offshore vessel with a length of 51.3 meters, a width of 12 meters and weighs 1,346 tons. The ship can accommodate up to 175 survivors in addition to the crew and will be used for search & rescue missions in the Mediterranean Sea. Life Support renews EMERGENCY’s commitment to those who do not see their rights recognized or protected: first the right to live.