Plastic pellets are destroying the beaches. This human-caused catastrophe has a huge negative impact on the ecosystems in and around the water. Many years of ignoring this challenge are finally coming to an end. Cleaning the beaches is up next, which is a difficult and slow manual process. A partnership between Race for Oceans, Jørn Larsen, and Trifork aims to change that. Join us as we share the process of developing an AI-driven beach rover with one purpose: to clean the beaches of plastic pellets.
Why plastic pellets? For decades they have been spilled into nature through production and transportation by waterways or land. It is the raw material to create the plastic products we use in our daily life. But the plastic pellets we find along the beaches, in harbors, in nature has never been a product, they simply got lost in nature and never became a success. The EU Commission estimated in October 2023, that between 52 and 184 thousand tonnes of plastic pellets are released in the environment each year due to mishandling throughout the entire supply chain.
This prototype is designed to perform in an indoor environment for people to see how AI can help us in the future with collecting the trash on land, that we can´t pick up manually. Today we will showcase our result – a unique collab between Race for Oceans and Trifork.
We believe that this mishandling in a near future will be stopped, not just in EU. But is doesn´t change the fact, that we need to clean up. A process that might can take decades depending on how we utilize the technologies.
PROGRAM
17.15
Welcome by Jørn Larsen CEO, Trifork and Signe Simonsen Founder Race for Oceans
17:25
Ted Talk and Q&A: Trends in plastic pollution on Danish coastlines – knowledge from 9 years of monitoring surveys by Jakob Strand, Ph.d. Aarhus Universitet
17.55
Cleaning the beaches for plastic pellets Signe Simonsen, CEO and Founder Race for Oceans
18.05
Developing an AI driven Beach Rover and live demo by Simon Dibbern, Software Pilot, Trifork
18.25
What will the future bring? Fundraising and how to support the cause.
18.35
Finger food and talk to the experts