Photo: The Great Bubble Barrier
Using bubbles to form a barrier to plastic waste in Amsterdam’s waterways is so successful the city authorities want to expand the project to five other areas. Since the Bubble Barrier was launched in 2019, it has caught some 190,000 pieces of plastic waste a year. “We expect the Bubble Barrier to catch 86% of floating plastic before it heads for the IJ waterway and flows into the sea,” says city waterways chief Melanie van der Horst. Compressed air pumped through a 60m punctured pipe on the channel bottom rises as a curtain of bubbles which pushes plastic upwards and to one side, where it can be collected. The expansion will cost €600,000, plus €50,000 a year in operating costs.
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