1,- 1Coordenação de Programas de Pós-graduação em Engenharia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (hoerner@oceanica.ufrj.br)
- 2Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica Celso Suckow da Fonseca, Brazil (dluizfon@gmail.com)
Marine pollution from anthropogenic solid waste, particularly plastics, is a global issue exacerbated by the continuous increase in production and disposal of these materials into the ocean. Despite public policies over the past decade, planned mitigation mechanisms still seem insufficient for the protection of aquatic environments and coastal communities. In this context, the Orla Sem Lixo (OSL) Project proposes an integrated solution by creating a value chain from floating plastic waste through interception, collection, transport, and chemical recovery of these residues. This study aims to analyze the applicability of interception booms for protecting coastal environments. A 320-meter-long prototype, portraited in Figure 1, was built on Fundão Island, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was developed and is being operated in partnership with an artisanal fishing community, using reconditioned EPS residue was used as primary floating material. To evaluate its applicability, a cost analysis was conducted along with the observation of waste accumulation in a sampling area. During the monitoring period, the average waste input rate in the protected area decreased from 13.5 g/m² per day to 1.0 g/m² per day, as showed in Table 1. Low-cost materials led to implementation cost around USD 16.00 per meter of boom. Therefore, there appear to be promising prospects for the application of this type of technology as a viable tool for coastal ecosystem protection. This result supports the continued development of the integrated solution proposed by the project.
Figure 1: Portrait of floating waste interception boom, 21/10/2024.
Table 1: Summary of waste mass accumulation rate results
|
Prototype Version |
Number of Collections |
Average results (g/m²/day) |
Median results (g/m²/day) |
Standard Deviation (g/m²/day) |
|
No version installed |
10 |
13.52 |
7.76 |
18.20 |
|
Version 1 |
4 |
6.99 |
1.96 |
10.72 |
|
Version 2 |
17 |
3.42 |
1.89 |
6.40 |
|
Version 3 |
14 |
0.98 |
0.77 |
0.76 |
How to cite: Marques, R., Fonseca, D., Sakamoto, C., Bertolotti, R., and Vinzon, S.: Community-oriented implementation of interception booms for coastal protection against marine debris in Rio de Janeiro, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-328, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-328, 2025.
