The plastics problem: Diving into the issue of ocean waste

As we settle into the holiday season and our buying of gifts and consumption of products increases, so too does the amount of waste we produce.

According to Australian Ethical, Australians tend to produce roughly 30 percent more waste at Christmas time, and research suggests that nearly one-third of Aussies expect to receive a gift they’ll never use. When you think about how much of that waste is made up of the packaging material used to wrap and send presents – not to mention the gifts themselves – it’s a stark reminder of the world’s plastic problem.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature says that at least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean?every year, and plastic makes up?80 per cent of all marine debris?found from surface waters to deep-sea sediments.

The problem of plastic pollution in the ocean is a global one, and it spells bad news for the marine environment in several ways.

Plastic debris can cause severe injuries or even kill marine species that ingest or become tangled in it. Further, plastic pollution poses a significant threat to not only the health of the ocean, but also the health of humans, the safety and quality of food, and coastal tourism. It is also a significant contributor to climate change.

With many of us getting ready to descend on beaches across Australia (and perhaps overseas) this summer, it’s time to start thinking about how we can tackle the problem of plastic waste in our waterways, and ensure our marine environments are still around for future generations to enjoy.

Collaboration is key

At Microsoft, we’re passionate about solving global environmental problems such as plastic pollution in the ocean. But we also recognise that we don’t have all the answers – and that there’s enormous strength to be found in numbers.

Through our US$50 million, five-year AI for Earth program, we’ve been able to support several wonderful organisations working to clean up ocean plastics. We are providing them with access to cloud and AI tools, offering opportunities for education and training on AI, and delivering the funding they need to develop and scale their innovative solutions.

One such grantee is Sustainable Coastlines, a non-profit organisation in New Zealand endeavouring to educate, motivate and empower individuals and communities to clean up and restore their coastal environments and waterways. Through its work with community groups, schools and businesses, Sustainable Coastlines has already helped to remove almost 1.7 million litres of litter, planted more than 281,000 trees beside waterways and educated more than 247,000 people to date.

The New Zealand charity has now teamed up with Microsoft and our technology partner?Enlighten Designs on a platform that uses intelligent digital storytelling and visualisation tools to help the Sustainable Coastlines team achieve their goal of empowering communities to remove litter and restore waterways.

Sustainable Coastlines has also developed a national litter database with the help of Microsoft. Litter Intelligence uses United Nations Environment Programme methodology, combined with Microsoft Power BI and Azure technology, to record litter along the coast of New Zealand.

The Ocean Cleanup is another non-profit organisation unlocking the power of AI to rid plastic from the ocean by intercepting it in rivers. The organisation was originally employing security cameras to locate debris, but the process of identifying plastics by manually scouring this footage was labour-intensive.

But since joining a Microsoft Hackathon for sustainability projects, the team at The Ocean Cleanup has been able to create a solution that uses AI to categorise tens of thousands of images, which has enabled them to find and analyse pollution a lot faster.

Using bridge-mounted cameras, The Ocean Cleanup photographs floating objects moving through a river towards the ocean, which are then analysed in Azure to differentiate plastic from organic debris. A solar-powered extraction unit called ‘The Interceptor’ then removes the plastic before it reaches the ocean.

Research shows that roughly 1,000 rivers across the globe contribute approximately 80 per cent of all riverine plastic that ends up in the ocean, and great initiatives like The Ocean Cleanup will continue to play a major role in stemming the flow.

Microsoft is also very proud to have partnered with Australia’s national scientific research agency, CSIRO, to tackle the issue of plastic pollution in the ocean.

By using machine learning and AI to study videos of rivers and stormwater drains, CSIRO is analysing data on the amount of plastic in our waterways and how it spreads to work out what strategies can be implemented to reduce the chance of this plastic entering rivers and oceans in the first place.

By using Microsoft’s digital tools – in particular, Microsoft Custom Vision – CSIRO’s research team can collect data on plastic debris in marine environments more quickly, efficiently and safely.

The project is part of a much broader partnership between CSIRO and Microsoft, which was formed to help tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges by leveraging AI and other leading-edge technologies.

Look inward

As well as embarking on partnerships to overcome global environmental challenges such as ocean waste and plastic pollution, we are also constantly re-evaluating our internal processes at Microsoft to find better, more sustainable ways to operate.

Right now, one area we’re focusing on is using more recycled materials in devices. For instance, 20 percent of the materials used in our new Surface dock come from post-consumer recycled plastic. And, earlier this year, we unveiled our Ocean Plastic Mouse made with 20 percent recycled ocean plastic, which we consider to be a significant innovation in materials technology.

We also understand that if we create less plastic in our packaging, there will be less packaging that ends up in the ocean. On average, Microsoft’s Surface packaging portfolio is 95 percent recyclable. And our packaging strategy is paper-first, using wood-based papers as well as bamboo and bagasse, a renewable by-product of sugarcane processing.

We’ve pledged to deliver 100 per cent recyclable packaging for all Surface devices by 2025. In fact, all of Microsoft’s packaging will be 100 per cent recycled, renewable or responsibly sourced by 2025.

And we’re not the only organisation that stands to benefit. By recycling, repurposing and reselling used plastics, we as a global society could unlock up to US$120 billion in our economy every year.

Let’s not allow this golden opportunity to go to waste.