The Interceptors
Ocean Cleanup Interceptor Original 019 on the Chao Phraya River, Bangkok, Thailand.
Plastic pollution and litter generally is a major problem throughout Asia. With the international community failing to agree binding standards to tackle the problem at source, NGO’s are deploying a variety of giant plastic collecting machines in major rivers in order to intercept the plastic before it reaches the ocean. Rupert Bedford reports from Thailand where the Interceptors are making a real impact.
By Rupert Bedford
16th February 2025.
Standing at the waters’ edge, the warm sand beneath my feet, I gaze over the open ocean, in the distance its flickering surface dancing with reflected light from the hot midday sun. A momentary thought ponders on why this dancing light, usually reserved for the golden hours of sunrise and sunset, was appearing at all, but quickly passes and I turn my attention to my two grandchildren who are splashing about with joyful abandon in the shallows.
I’m in Thailand with my wife, visiting our son Sam and his Vietnamese family. For me, visiting family is one of the few exceptions to my ‘no fly’ rule and, carbon offsets in place, we’re enjoying some quality beach time on the coast.
By the time the first pieces of plastic reveal themselves, the dancing, flickering light stretches across the whole bay. Millions of pieces of plastic and other debris reflecting the light of the sun as they bob along in one huge patch towards the shoreline, before depositing themselves on the sand.
It is a rude awakening for everyone on this little piece of former paradise.
Living by the coast in the UK, we are no strangers to local beach cleans. So, after searching out some bin liners from the local beach café (the irony is not lost on us that these are indeed plastic bin liners), our family gets to work collecting the debris from the shoreline. At first it appears an impossible task. But the humble ‘beach clean’ is a phenomenon. This simple, practical, environmental act is something that anyone can participate in.
And, true to form, once other beachgoers see what we were doing, one by one they join in until there is a small army of beach cleaners quietly and thoughtfully picking up the plastic for collection. Before too long much of the plastic has been removed.
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Our little beach clean is of course a ‘drop in the ocean’ in the context of the vast problem of plastic pollution in Thailand and across Asia as a whole. The big international companies continue to produce and flood the enormous Asian market with plastic goods, including single use plastic. And environmental laws in the region are failing to address the issue adequately.
Within this vacuum an increasing number of innovative international projects have stepped in to collaborate with the Thai government in an attempt to intercept the plastic in their waterways before it reaches the ocean.
And this is where the Interceptors come in.
Organisations such as Rotterdam-based non-profit Ocean Cleanup have engineered giant water based plastic-eating machines that resemble something out of a James Bond movie. Using the natural currents of the river they intercept the plastic as it travels down the river towards the ocean, and divert it into their collectors which are then taken away for recycling.
Chao Phraya River is the largest waterway flowing through central Thailand. It stretches more than 230 miles from the northern Nakhon Sawan province to the Gulf of Thailand and is home to critically endangered species such as the Siamese tigerfish, giant barb and Chao Phraya giant catfish.
In Bangkok, it is an artery for a network of water buses, ferries and wooden long-tail boats. But it’s not just carrying people. According to Ocean Cleanup, the Chao Praya River carries 4,000 tonnes of plastic waste to the sea every year. Plastic can be washed from the land into the rivers with the rain and floods, but even with penalties of up to 10,000 baht (£220), there are still people illegally dumping rubbish.
As reported in ‘The Monk and the Hippo’, unusual collaborations have emerged in response, including one between Seven Clean Seas and the monks of Wak Chak Daeng temple on the Chao Phraya river. In 2024 they together launched the Hippo, a solar-powered boat, which aims to remove 1.4m kilos of plastic a year from Bangkok’s busiest waterway. Terracycle Thai Foundation is also working in the area.
These initiatives are having real world impact.
In addition to the original Interceptor, Ocean Cleanup now deploys a variety of models including the Barrier, the Tender, the Barricade and the Guard, so named after the particular method of plastic collection utilised. And it now operates a clean up operation directly in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest accumulation of Ocean plastic on the globe.
Together with their river interceptors, this is what plastic clean up looks like at scale.
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Back in Vietnam and inspired by the beach clean experience on the Thai island, my son Sam and his Vietnamese wife Trang set about establishing their own clean up project in their local community of Ky Anh in North Central Vietnam.
Vietnam suffers from the same plastic and litter problems as other countries in Asia. To an extent it still remains culturally acceptable simply to discard litter in public places without anyone batting an eyelid - similar to how the situation was in the UK until the 1970’s when campaigns like Keep Britain Tidy made a huge impact in forever changing public perception on the issue.
As a result of Sam and Trang’s efforts, ‘Keep Ky Anh Clean’ was born and the response from locals and interest from the media (Ha Tinh TV) has been extraordinary, with TV crews intreagued by this strange Englishman and his focus on the importance of keeping the area litter free. The project now has a small army of local volunteers who participate in regular beach cleans and other clean up activities. It is hoped that their example will inspire other communities across Vietnam.
For my part I continue to pick up what I can for my local group on the North Devon coast, the ‘Hartland Beachcombers’, reminding myself that every piece, however small, is one less piece of plastic in our beautiful, fragile ocean.