The European Space Agency is developing technology to allow satellites to identify the concentration, movement and origin of plastic debris across the world’s oceans.
A European Space Agency satellite. European Space Agency
PAOLO CORRADI AND Luca Maresi had the same idea: tracking plastic trash from space.
Corradi, an engineer with the European Space Agency’s (ESA) optics division in the Netherlands, had been hearing about plastic marine litter from a friend at a nonprofit working on the issue. Maresi, Corradi’s boss, had seen the problem firsthand during sailing trips.
“We actually had the same study idea independently and inspired by different reasons,” Corradi said.
The men figured that deploying satellites to monitor marine litter on a global scale could give researchers working on plastic pollution data about its abundance, concentrations and movement. But it remains to be seen whether such satellite tracking will be possible and whether it will be useful in the effort to combat a huge and growing problem that has spawned “gyres” of plastic trash in the world’s oceans. Read more
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