Eco Investor February 2016

Unlisted Companies

Cleaning the Oceans Takes Off

Two young entrepreneurs have created an impressive amount of media coverage and had their youtube videos viewed over 2 million times with an innovation that can help capture plastics and other pollution in the oceans and keep them cleaner.

The founders of Seabin Pty Ltd, Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski, have also raised US$267,767 from 7,360 backers to fund their innovation through a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. This is already over their target. They have also received a seed investment from marine technology developer Shark Mitigation Systems Pty Ltd, which has plans to list on the ASX.

The Seabin is a small and simple device - a bin - that is fixed to a jetty or floating platform and allows ocean or river water to flow through so it can capture debris. A water pump creates a flow of water, the debris is caught in a natural fibre bag, and the water is pumped back into the marina. It is low cost, low maintenance and works 24/7. The waste is easily collected for disposal.

The Seabin under development.

The entrepreneurs aim to begin shipping the Seabin in mid to late 2016. They have chosen marinas, ports and yacht clubs for initial commercialization and say they are receiving strong interest from these for the product and the crowdfunding campaign. The Seabin is cost effective for this market as it aims to replace the "trash boats" that drive around harbours and marinas scooping up rubbish with built-in nets and to also replace marina workers walking around with scooping nets.

The innovators have ideas and plans to scale up for ocean cleaning.

They also say that in four years of testing the Seabins we haven't caught any sea life.

The video of the Seabin Project is here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cleaning-the-oceans-one-marina-at-a-time#/

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