Polluted Sea - What to do?

[The_Big_K]

I'll expect some response from the marine & chemical engineers here.

I spend last weekend on the beach at Dapoli (Konkan, India). Its a beautiful place to visit. I was hurt to see that such a beautiful place has a polluted sea. I could see all different colored chemicals floating on the water .

I was wondering if we'll ever be able to make the sea pollution free. Any ideas, folks?

[mayurpathak]

Yes. We can definitely help. As they say, charity begins at home. Lets first all of us start behaving properly whenever we go to the places of natural beauty. To start with lets keep our surroundings clean. Only then we can take our good habits to the nature.

Second, we need to learn to say no to chemicals. Do you know that the drain from our bath rooms goes to the seas ultimately? Its our duty to make less use of harmful chemicals every day. Also spread a playful word around against use of products like Phenol, Acids etc.

[just2rock]

See..Biggie its really sad what you see..i can understand..but see untill and unless we all bends towards safer life and Cleanliness (from a leywman -to Corporates) this wont change...So lets hope that we wILL soon make a way out of it...Just keep you Hope LIVE LONG...believe me U!

[The_Big_K]

I guess I should clarify the purpose of this thread.

Are there any technical solutions to the problem that's being discussed?

[ash]

Indeed.. prevention is better than cure. That should probably a principle for engineers. But anyway, we should still think of a way to fix the existing pollution problem.

Regarding chemicals.. maybe we should approach it like how oil spills are cleaned up. One can use "sorbents" to absorb the chemicals from the water like a sponge. Another method is to use biological agents to break down the chemicals into harmless compounds.

Of course, thats as much as I can contribute regarding to technical stuff I'd have to research these methods more thoroughly to see their feasibility in cleaning chemicals (or sewage) from the sea.

[mayurpathak]

Gee... Ash was quicker than me to post about absorbents.

Anyway, I forgot what they are called, but there are these compounds when added to dirty water they behave like potassium permanganate. They coagulate the dirt, dust, fats and oils from the water and take them to the bottom. This is a normal practice for clearer waters (say lakes) but don't know if its the same being done for Sea as well.

[ash]

Oh, thats interesting! So then we could just scoop them up from the bottom? Maybe a underwater collector robot can clean them.

I just stumbled upon a shelf in the uni library, displaying books on Water treatments and engineering. Gonna be a long read for sure.

[mayurpathak]

No you need not scoop them. The material becomes biodegradable. It either gets eroded by the waves or gets amalgamated with the rocky or silty bottoms.

Waste water engineering was fun, when I did my civil engineering.

[ash]

Hey, what about if we equip a hive of small autonomous boats equipped with "sorbents"? They can have chemical detectors and share information from each other wirelessly, combined with aerial and satellite images. This could possibly enchance the cleaning efficiency. The "boats" don't have to be fabricated with expensive designs.. they just need to float and propell across the water. In fact, we can add solar panels so they can remain in sea longer (and extend mission range). A single "command" boat, operated by humans can be used to launch these small boats and observe their operation.

Some info of sorbents here:
Sorbents | Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines (CPG) | Wastes | US EPA

I skimmed through a waste water book. Ya know the pipes that go into the sea from the beach? It consist of processed waste water, but other wastes still get mixed into it. They are then diffused far away into the sea. Unfortunately.. a "plume" of waste can occur just below the water level.. so we might not actually see the extent of how polluted the sea really is. Anywayz, the book got into some detailed diffusion analysis.. I proceeded to put it back in the shelf :P

That got me wondering. For landlocked countries.. are rivers their only waste water outlet?

[ash]

Alright, here's the idea in a diagram. The "pink" boat represents the Command Ship, while the yellow ones are the robots. White dashed lines are the communication links between the Command and robots, while the red lines represent inter-robot ad hoc communications. Forgive me for my choice of colours.. I was rushing it a bit



Software: Inkscape. Used the freehand function to draw the outlines of the chemical dispersion, and simply used Fill. Skewed the water textures to give it that isometric view.. though the angle is not exactly 60^o!

Water texture: Water Textures - 3d models for 3d studio max Poser Bryce Lightwave 3d engines and textures

[mayurpathak]

Interesting, very interesting! I just have one doubt. The boats will have to cover the entire area in order to have the sorbent effective. Which means they will have to be in the sea for a very long duration.

A suggestion, instead of using robot controlled boats, you could do away with fishing nets and/or the bulbs that are used to keep them floating. They not only spread across a larger area but are also cheap. What say?

[The_Big_K]

Well, the idea is good but I think it is not practical. Well, as MayurPathak says, the boats will have to cover the entire sea (which makes it impractical).

I'd say let's accept the damage done till now. Let's think of what can we do to prevent the sea from polluting further. How can we stop the pollutants from entering the sea?

[mayurpathak]

That is right biggie. But don't write off the project yet. I think what ash says makes sense, at least for a smaller catchment areas and land locked water bodies. Because I believe the movement of the water will be largely responsible for the effectiveness of the project. More turbulent water, less will be the coagulation.

Ash, expecting your view.

[The_Big_K]

Oh, I"m not as I said, the idea is good...rather fantastic! I was thinking about alternate ways to eliminate the root cause!