Surfboard And Kayak Device That Collects Microplastics

As many of us continue to fight against microplastic pollution, a team of engineers has created an innovative solution that could have a massive impact through an unexpected activity: water sports.

According to Design Wanted, three graduates from IED Milan created Hauki, a project that turns board sports like surfing into microplastic cleanup efforts. Hauki is a system that attaches to surfboards, paddleboards, and canoes, and captures microplastics as the athlete aboard it travels through the water.

Hauki features a five-millimeter mesh net on the front to capture larger debris, before filtering microplastics toward a 330-micrometer filter, which catches and stores the offending plastics in a capsule with replaceable filters. It has a 500-watt motor attached as well to provide some extra thrust on the board to help cancel out any potential drag issues from Hauki itself.

Microplastics are a massive problem in our modern oceans and bodies of water, and the issue continues to grow with each passing year. While research about their impacts on humans is still ongoing, they've been linked to multiple health issues, and we're finding them in more and more places.

Scientists have found microplastics in the digestive tracts of fish in the Nile, and they have been found in naturally occurring, swiftly moving particles known as flocs, allowing them to travel great distances in the ocean.

Microplastics can have a devastating impact on wildlife; smaller animals like plankton or shrimp could mistake them for food, starving themselves of the nutrients they need to survive in the process. Then, when those animals are eaten, the plastic passes into the systems of larger predators and moves up the food chain.

Hauki's design combats this by turning sports enthusiasts into activists, making each time you partake in the activity you love serve the purpose of helping to clean up the place you love doing it in. The simplicity of the design helped it to win the iF Design Student Award, as well as a special prize from design firm Grohe.