"Supplying aluminum for such a unique project is truly inspiring. It highlights the opportunities for aluminum solutions that are emerging while tackling one of the major environmental challenges we face,” says John Delamboy, Commercial Director for Hydro Extrusions in the Benelux region.

The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization based in the Netherlands. Their statistics show that about 1% of our 100,000 rivers are responsible for 80% of the plastic which flows into our oceans via rivers.

The organization has developed the Interceptor, an autonomous system for collecting plastic pollution from rivers before it reaches the sea. Over the span of five years, they aim to halt the 80% of plastic coming from rivers into our oceans by focusing on the most-polluting 1,000 rivers around the world.

Light and affordable structural element

The Ocean Cleanup was looking for a light and affordable structural element that offered possibilities for scalability and part integration. Aluminium turned out to be a viable alternative, and Hydro is involved as one of the aluminium material suppliers for the second-generation Interceptor.

Aluminium was also a logical choice because of its corrosion resistance in open waters.

Design collaboration

The companies working with The Ocean Cleanup are collaborating to optimize the design of the Interceptor to make the system even better.

Today, one Interceptor can extract 50,000 kilograms of trash from a river each day, going up to 100,000 kilograms under “optimized conditions.”

Hydro has supplied aluminium profiles in four different shapes from its Dutch plant in Hoogezand. The profiles are used as construction parts for the body and roofing.