The Manta , the sailboat that collects plastics from the sea and turns them into fuel.
The sailboat ‘The Manta’ can operate almost autonomously, thanks to the plastics it collects from the sea and turns into fuel
Tired of constantly colliding with plastic debris at sea, French sailor Yvan Bourgnon decided to do something to fix the problem.
As a product of his efforts, ‘The Manta’ was created, a gigantic sailboat that cleans the sea, collecting plastic garbage to turn it into its own fuel.
The best thing is that ‘The Manta’ performs this process through an ecological process that practically allows it to function autonomously, with a minimal environmental footprint.
Manta, the huge sailboat dedicated to cleaning the seas of plastic garbage
According to expert estimates, about eight million tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year. This situation will be aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2020, the UN estimated that 75 percent of the plastic with which masks, gloves, among other sanitary articles are made, will reach the seas.
The result: serious damage to marine life and the economy. Aware of this, Yvan Bourgnon decided to found the association The Sea Cleaners.
It fights plastic pollution with ‘Manta’, a huge sailboat capable of collecting and processing large amounts of plastic garbage that it turns into fuel.
‘Manta’: How do you collect large amounts of plastic and turn it into fuel?
The sailboat, whose name is due to its similarity to a manta ray, was built with low-carbon steel, measures 62 meters high and weighs 1,800 tons.
It works with an electric hybrid propulsion system, made of hydrogenerators, two wind turbines and 500 square meters of solar panels. This allows you:
Collect up to three tons of plastic per hour
Catch fragments up to 10 millimeters in size.
Reach garbage that is up to a meter deep
On board the ‘Manta’ travel two people in charge of separating the plastic, which is crushed, melted and transformed into synthetic gas.
The latter passes through turbines to generate electricity, energy that allows the sailboat to operate 75 percent of the time without using fossil fuels.
