San Antonio is the latest city bringing the boom to tackle a huge problem in their waterways.
No, this isn't the boom of TikTok fame. Instead, these are "litter booms" designed to stop hundreds of pounds of waste from traveling down creeks and rivers.
Two litter booms created by Osprey Initiative and funded by Coca-Cola Southwest beverages were recently installed into the Salado Creek Greenway system, as the San Antonio Report detailed.
The devices will go into Comanche Park and Martin Luther King Park, with River Aid San Antonio cleaning them out twice a month. Coca-Cola says it has contributed about $50,000 as part of the project and also helped install the booms in other Texas cities, including Dallas and Houston.
The booms act as floating barriers, which collect trash and halt their flow down rivers. Similar devices have been used internationally to combat floating trash in areas such as the River Soar in Leicestershire, England, and Panama's Matías Hernández River.
Widespread pollution in rivers, creeks, and the ocean is a global problem with major consequences for the planet. Scientists found that there are millions of tons of plastic sitting on the ocean floor and threatening the local ecosystem.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch might be the most alarming visual representation of the problem. Researchers found that shellfish often hitch a ride onto plastic pollution with negative consequences for their new ecosystems as they become invasive species.
Divers and fishermen encounter daily situations where fish and marine life are imperiled by trash that they mistake for prey or get trapped in. The scope of the problem might be even larger than we can see, as microplastics can evade detection and end up harming the ecosystem.
The litter boom is just one of many larger-scale remedies being deployed beyond individual divers, fishermen, and kayakers chipping in and removing plastic as they go.
🗣️ Should taxpayers help pay to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
🔘 We should pay for all of it 👍
🔘 We should pay some but not all 💸
🔘 Corporations should foot the bill 🏭
🔘 Charities should pay for it 🙏
🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind
An entrepreneur and a Buddhist monk are teaming up to use a High Impact Plastic Pollution remOver ("Hippo") boat to tackle rampant plastic pollution in Bangkok. The Ocean Cleanup is a Dutch nonprofit that has removed over 17 million pounds of plastic trash from the Pacific Ocean since its founding in 2013.
Consumers can do their part by recycling, upcycling, and using plastic-free alternatives. Plastic that ends up in methane-producing landfills also damages Earth by contributing to the warming of the planet.
While the scope of what Bexar County and the city of San Antonio are doing with two litter booms is starting out relatively modestly, local officials have high hopes for widespread replication of it.
"This should be a pilot that we very quickly implement into the next fiscal year budget across the county and the city, statewide and federally," Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert told the San Antonio Report.
Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Cool Picks
