SUSTAINABILITY
Floating recyclers turn ocean waste into raw material
Marine debris becomes new products through at-sea recovery and processing.
Image by The Ocean Cleanup.
Marine plastic pollution is no longer only an environmental problem — it is fast becoming a resource stream. New platforms are collecting, sorting, and recycling plastic waste directly from rivers and seas, then feeding it into manufacturing supply chains.
Here are the latest real-world advances:
The Ocean Cleanup scales record removals. In 2024, The Ocean Cleanup reported its largest-ever haul: 11.5 million kilograms of trash removed from oceans and rivers, including plastics destined for recycling into consumer products. The group now operates fleets in the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
Hawai‘i Pacific University turns debris into products. In July 2025, HPU announced a new initiative to process over 227,000 pounds of ghost nets and floats at its Kalihi warehouse. The program, run with local partners, converts marine debris into sustainable products for infrastructure and construction.
EU-backed MAELSTROM pilots automated recycling. The EU’s MAELSTROM project, active through 2024, is testing floating systems that collect, sort, and recycle marine litter using renewable energy. The goal is to integrate recovered plastics into the European circular economy.
Urban waste streams take in marine plastics. A 2024 study by researchers at UPV/EHU showed that plastics recovered from seas can be merged into municipal recycling streams. Their findings focus on how sorting technologies can adapt to mixed marine debris without high contamination risk.
That’s not all: startups are piloting mobile pyrolysis units to turn unrecyclable marine plastics into oil and gas feedstocks at sea. Analysts say floating recycling platforms could become standard near ports and river mouths, turning marine waste into a new raw material flow.
—TFI
The Floating Institute is all about advancing knowledge of the global floating economy.