PG Flow Solutions and Clean Sea Solutions Launch Waste Collecting Floating Jetty
PG Flow Solutions and Norwegian greentech start-up Clean Sea Solutions have launched a floating dock in Drammen, Norway, which automatically rinses marinas and harbours for ocean plastic, diesel film and other floating pollutants.
The Clean Sea PG Aqua Pod is a flexible, modular floating dock with an ocean waste collection functionality integrated between the dock’s pontoons. Plastic debris from around the pod flows into an internal collection pool through “waterfalls” created by an electric pump, which create a surface skimming effect between the dock’s pontoons.
“By integrating the system with the floating dock, we make ocean waste collection an automated and integral part – and not an add-on – to those in charge of harbour and port management. Hence, we lower the threshold of taking a broader responsibility to help remove plastic and other pollutants from the harbour area,” says Per Elvestuen, managing director of Clean Sea Solutions.
Clean Sea Solutions has developed the idea and concept , while PG Flow Solutions has developed the final design and delivered the high-capacity pump that is used in combination with the dock. The first dock was launched in Drammen, Norway last week, and if everything goes according to plan, these floating docks can be found in marinas all over the world from spring 2021 onwards.
“Through creating a continuous suction effect below the waste collection tank integrated in the floating dock, the high capacity pump will ensure that waste from a relatively large area can be gathered in the tank’s filters and subsequently removed from the ocean,” says Carl Engelstad, mechanical designer at PG Flow Solutions, and the engineer behind the PG-Aqua Pod.
Steve Paulsen, CEO of PG Flow Solutions, adds: “We are utilising the same pump technology that we have installed on hundreds of vessels around the world. Part of our sustainability efforts is to identify new ways of utilising technologies that have previously proven their worth in the marine, shipping and offshore industries.”
To enable as many ports and marinas as possible to afford the Aqua Pod, Clean Sea Solutions and PG Flow Solutions offers leasing of the floating dock system.
“Users can lease our equipment instead of buying it. Marine pollution is the fastest growing environmental problem in the world, according to the UN. We therefore believe keeping capex to a minimum will lower the threshold of adopting new environmental technologies such as ours,” says Per Elvestuen.
PG Flow Solutions provides proprietary solutions, systems and products for companies within the energy, maritime, aquaculture and land-based process industries. The heritage of the business is pumps and pumping systems. The company’s headquarters and manufacturing facility is located in Sande, Vestfold, Norway. Its subsidiary Calder Ltd operates out of a similar facility in Worchester outside Birmingham, UK, while subsidiary Cflow Fish Handling AS operates out of Aalesund, Norway.
Photo by Trond Teigen
