#StartupSpotlight – The Seabins that Save the Earth

While some entrepreneurs create an enterprise to make money others create it to make money and help improve the world around them. Two such men are Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski who being avid surfers began to get annoyed, if not downright frustrated by the amount of garbage they had to avoid in the ocean to get some surfing done.

This led them to quit their money-making jobs and begin a sustainable solution that helped clean the ocean. They call their project the Seabin Project, and it is basically an automated garbage bin that captures the trash, oil, detergent and other flotsam just lying around in the ocean. The design itself is created to be placed near the docks in marinas and other waterways used by yacht clubs, private pontoons and other such harbors.

While we all talk about improving the environment and sign petitions that would help improve our world in different manners, these two have become icons of creative thought. They refuse to allow others to control their life and have actually produced a design that is scalable for most water systems and can also be fitted on yachts.

Seabin is affordable and can be used in a sustainable manner.

Goals of the Project

The millennial generation is being called the generation of social entrepreneurs. These are people who not only want to make money but also want to make a difference and impact the world around them-on their own terms. Turton and Ceglinski are the perfect example of this independence of spirit. They love surfing and when they saw a problem that interfered with this passion they decided to something about it. However, this project is not just an idea, it is an entrepreneurial launch that has scaled goals for the future.

The short term goals of the project include:

• Ridding the ocean of plastics and pollution
• To begin production of the prototype by the end of 2016
• To create Seabin from sustainable materials to lower the impact on the environment
• Also to reduce costs by having manufacturing done in the nation of installation

Understanding that no one solution can fit all in terms of environmental clean-up and that educating the masses is a large part of helping to lower pollution levels other goals include:

• Creating future models more customized to specific locations
• Educate the people in disposing plastics at a more local level
• Set up programs to educate students in schools.
• Recycle the Seabins for other applications

Financial Aspects

Ceglinski and Turton, are based in Palma, Mallorca, and hoping to raise $230,000 (£155,000) to start the production of their design.

Most entrepreneurs fail because they do not recognize that when success comes it has to be scaled. These two Australian entrepreneurs have realized that the project they have taken on is not a small project, especially considering the vast amount of water mass they have to cover. It will take time, and a lot of money. The duo has started the production of the design with the help of Shark Mitigation Systems and they intend to take the design to market it in Mallorca, Spain.

Crowdfunding on Indiegogo has raised $70,000 and the hope is this snowball effect continues until they have what they need to make a project a success. Their project is a high aim enterprise but they have to think big to become the success they hope to achieve.

Seabins can be pre-ordered for $3,825 (£2,500) and delivery is expected in late 2016.

What is so unique about Seabin?

The way Seabin works is dynamic. Operating 24/7 365 days a year it picks up all the trash and then pumps the clean water back out.

The unique aspect to Seabin is that the entrepreneurs hope to produce the design using the plastic they pick up from the ocean. Every year 8 million tons of plastic is dumped in the water, if these two social entrepreneurs can effectively remove this plastic and bring the promise of a cleaner ocean to life, it will have a phenomenal effect on the environment.