Floating garbage bins help collect trash from Vancouver's waterways

Stationary cleaning machines called seabins are helping clear Vancouver's False Creek of garbage, one scoop of debris at a time. 

Sadie Caron of Fraser Riverkeeper, the charity behind the project, says the bins are attached to various spots around Granville Island. They skim the surface of the water 24 hours a day with the help of an electric pump to capture any sort of floating debris.

"Water is sucked in from the surface and it passes through a catch bag that is removable inside a sea bin," Caron said. 

The pump is able to displace 25,000 litres of water an hour and the bins catch the debris. Filtered water is then pumped back into the marina.

"Everything, all the debris that's caught inside the catch bag, and the catch bag is emptied every single day. And they can catch about 3.9 kilograms of floating debris everyday," she said.

The seabins are part of a broader plan to reduce plastic waste from entering the world's oceans and waterways.

Plastic breaks down, but not entirely — only into progressively smaller pieces known as microplastics. These tiny plastics enter the food web through smaller important food sources like plankton and krill, where they are consumed by other animals.