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Tag: Sustainability

12 Netherlands-based energy startups that raised over €1M in 2020

The world is increasingly growing aware of the detrimental effects of fossil fuel and is actively seeking an alternative. According to the EEA, “The European energy system is undergoing rapid changes to set the EU economy on a low-carbon and resource-efficient path. Renewable energy is instrumental to this transformation. EU efforts to double the share of renewable energy in its consumption have paid off, having reduced significantly the amount of fossil fuels used and their associated greenhouse gas emissions.”

A number of European startups are also playing their part in helping the EU achieve a sustainable future; especially in the Netherlands. According to a report, the Netherlands is aiming for a rapid transition to a carbon-neutral economy to help its economic growth and energy security. The country has made notable progress on its transition to a carbon-neutral economy and has set targets to reduce them by 49% by 2030 and by 95% by 2050, compared with 1990 levels.

RanMarine Technology

Founder/s: Richard Hardiman
Founded year: 2016
Total funding: €1.6M

RanMarine Technology specialises in the design and development of industrial autonomous surface vessels (ASV’s) for ports, harbours, and other marine and water environments. The company specialises in remote-controlled and autonomous drones. It came up WasteShark, a drone to swim through water, gather data about the marine environment, and extract unwanted material. It is a drone that is efficient, non-threatening, unobtrusive, and long-lasting. This drone will eat plastics and litter, chemicals in the water, and extract pest and alien vegetation.

Read the full article by Silicon Canals article

Is Autonomous Technology The Solution To Fight Water Pollution?

The quantity of plastic waste is rapidly increasing in rivers, lakes and oceans across the world. Over 245 million tonnes of plastic waste is floating on the surface of oceans, while tonnes of heavy waste materials are present on the floor of these oceans. The presence of plastic waste in waterways has affected all kinds of living beings, including birds, fish, humans, etc.

One of the largest patches of floating plastic and other waste materials present on the surface of oceans is spread over 1.6 million square kilometres in the pacific. There are four similar patches present in the oceans, which are relatively smaller than the one in pacific.

Undoubtedly, it is not an easy job to clean up these patches of garbage only through manpower. However, with the help of water robots, this activity can be performed rather easily. These water robots can operate independently and clean the plastic patches faster with great accuracy.

One such autonomous surface vehicles or water robot, known as WasteShark can clean up to 200 litres of ocean waste before being emptied. Inspired by whale sharks,  WasteShark floats through the sea just like the former with its mouth open, collecting garbage instead of fish. Developed by RanMarine Technology,  WasteShark moves gently that prevents it from posing any danger to the ocean life. It also collects data about water quality, providing insights into how fast plastic is degrading in the seas.

Read the full article by Stats Globe article

 

New equipment for Ilfracombe’s WasteShark as new launch system nears completion

Ilfracombe Harbour staff have been presented with a custom built cage, trolley and waterproof cover for ‘Sharkie’ – the aquatic drone which is designed to clear unwanted debris such as plastics and oil from the waterway.

The items have been donated by RMB Chivenor’s Commando Logistic Regiment and the North Devon branch of the Royal Marine Association.

They will be used to transport the WasteShark from its home to the new bespoke launch system at the harbour, once complete.

The new system is being set up specifically for Ilfracombe’s tidal range by harbour staff and The Shark Ambassadors – local residents who have volunteered their time to help with the operation of Sharkie.

North Devon Councils lead member for the environment, councillor Netti Pearson, added: “’Sharkie’ is a real asset to Ilfracombe and as a resident of the town I look forward to seeing it back in action. I was at the launch last year, it is a novel way to raise awareness of the amount of plastic waste that washes up in the harbour and is a useful tool for measuring and reducing other pollutants in the water.

“The new equipment will make it easier to launch ‘Sharkie’, and house it safely, so we will be able to see it in action more often.”

Read the full article by North Devon Gazette article

Trash-Eating Drones Are Taking on Water Pollution

An autonomous water drone lumbers around Ilfracombe Harbor on the North Devon Coast in Southwest England. Called WasteShark, the 5-by-3.5-feet catamaran-shaped “aquadrone” scoops up plastic, rubbish, and debris before the tide takes it out to sea.

Inspired by whale sharks that cruise around the water with their mouths open to suck in plankton and fish, WasteShark gobbles up over 1,000 pounds of waste that crosses its path daily. “We built it on the same principals as a whale shark. It is the size of an average coffee table and operates just like a robotic vacuum cleaner that goes around your room, sweeping the dust from your floors,” says Richard Hardiman, CEO of RanMarine Technology, the Netherlands-based startup that developed WasteShark.

England is not the only location deploying water drones to prevent plastic from entering the ocean and threatening marine life. Founded in 2016, RanMarine has used WasteSharks to help clean up the harbor waters in the United States, additional areas in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, South Africa, India, Denmark, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia. According to Hardiman, its customers include local and federal governments, port authorities, educational and commercial organizations.

He believes that the vessel is most effective at “waste chokeholds like harbors, rivers, and canals” because it can “enter hard-to-reach areas and easily navigate through water traffic to clean urban, rural, and industrial waterways.” Extending no deeper than a foot beneath the surface, the device glides through the water and its mouth-like opening in the front catches everything in its path. A metal-wire basket, located between its two hulls, filters out the water and collects solids that are brought back to the shore to be emptied, sorted, and recycled.

WasteShark can be steered manually via remote control or set up to swim autonomously; its collision-avoidance system employs remote-sensing technology called Lidar to spot obstacles, such as buoys and other crafts, and adjust its position accordingly.

Read the full article by Dell Technologies article

Boundary Holding makes cleantech investment, funds Netherland-based startup

European investment firm Boundary Holding has recently invested in a Netherland-based startup – RanMarine Technology. The firm specialises in the design and development of industrial autonomous surface vehicles (ASV’s) for ports, harbours, and other marine and water environments. Before the deal was finalised, the founder of Boundary Holding Rajat Khare and the founder of RanMarine Richard Hardiman met several times in Europe.

Talking about cleantech investment that Boundary Holding has made, Rajat Khare said, “Investment for a clean environment is our core focus area. I am impressed by how RanMarine has made great progress in the past years. I am enthusiastic about this new partnership of Boundary Holding and RanMarine as it is inevitable that this partnership would fetch better results.”

Founder of RanMarine Richard Hardiman, said, “Boundary Holding will extend our reach, bring us to exciting new markets, strengthen the status within the existing market, and lay the foundation for possible further expansion, all while maintaining high quality and standards.” Post investment, RanMarine is planning to utilise the funds on the R&D of upcoming products, data and customer portal, expanding the team and business development, and trade shows for market growth.

Read the full article by London Daily Post article

Meet the Zayed Sustainability Prize finalists for start-ups

Ten candidates across five categories will be announced as 2020 winners on Monday.  This Monday, 10 candidates from a total of 30 finalists will be announced as winners of the 2020 Zayed Sustainability Prize.  The major international award now covers five categories, including health, food, energy and water. Education is addressed through its ‘global high schools’ category.  This year, finalists include start-ups which have developed technologies to combat plastic waste and the spread of disease, as well as improving access to clean electricity.  The winners will be chosen from across all categories and will each be awarded $600,000 (Dh2.2 million). Here, The National takes a closer look at some of those in contention.

RanMarine Technology

Category: Water
What they do: Remove unwanted plastic and rubbish from waterways
Where: Globally

Plastic pollution has undeniably had a devastating impact on our oceans. For years, marine life and habitats have suffered. Today, however, one social enterprise is doing its bit to restore the health of beaches, canals and rivers around the world.

RanMarine Technology invented the WasteShark, an autonomous drone which swims through water while clearing waste materials including plastics, oil, toxic algae and invasive plants.

The robot works by sucking up unwanted debris and collecting environmental data to understand changes to water quality. Its designers say it poses no threat to animals, emits no light or noise pollution and produces zero carbon or greenhouse emissions. “We chose to target this particular global issue because we love the ocean,” Oliver Cunningham, co-founder of the enterprise told The National. “It is not only the source of all life on Earth, it is also a thing of immeasurable natural beauty and fun. “We believe that building smarter, cleaner, more efficient cities is the key to ensuring that humans can live sustainably and happily on Earth.

Read the full article by UAE article

WasteShark the new device that removes floating debris from water

The climate emergency is not the only environmental issue the world is struggling to solve. Plastic products clog our oceans, threatening marine life and polluting the water. At current rates plastic is predicted to outweigh all the fish in the sea by the year 2050. In Holland, a new device is a small sign of hope. ‘WasteShark’ is a remotely controlled device that collects rubbish from the water.

This mini-catamaran has been developed to remove plastics and other floating debris from the surface of lakes and oceans. Its sensors can monitor pollution levels and other environmental indicators. It is electrically powered, emission-free and can collect hundreds of kilos of rubbish at a time. Richard Hardiman is the founder of Ranmarine Technologies, the company responsible for Waste Shark:

“What we’re trying to do is create a small enough vessel that will get into tight spaces where waste collects, particularly in the harbours and the ports, and stop all that waste being taken out into the greater ocean.

“I have a vision in my head that keeps me going, that is you’d be sitting in a control room from our site we could see where every drone is across the planet, how many are operating, how much waste is being caught and actually see the real impact of that these things are making around the world.”

This is one of the projects that received support from the European funds allocated to making plastic circular. Ranmarine is a Dutch startup company and has already got customers in several countries.

Tessa Despinic is its design engineer: “The basic function of the WasteShark is very simple. It just swims around and collects trash from the surface. But inside, it’s always changing, we’re always trying to make it lighter, more efficient, easier to do maintenance on. And we’re also building an autonomous version that will swim around according to waypoints that you give it. So we’re always working on that and making it better.”

Read the full article by Euro News article

RanMarine Technology Appoints Drone Solutions its South East Asia Distributor

Ranmarine Technology last week announced its appointment of Drone Solutions as its Distributor in South East Asia.

Chief Executive Officer of RanMarine Technology Richard Hardiman said, “The addition of Drone Solutions to professionally represent our interests in South East Asia greatly enhances our technical and customer service, local support and product training capability and efficiency in the region.”

The Executive Director of Drone Solutions Gianluca Salone, noted “our ability to offer Ranmarine’s state-of- the-art environmentally responsible WasteShark solutions which effectively cleans inland and coastal waters of water born debris, microplastics and hazardous oil and chemicals is a great step forward in our fight against senseless water waste pollution enabling Smart Cities.”

RanMarine Technology™ is a drone technology company from The Netherlands which specializes in developing and selling remote controlled and autonomous drones called Sharks that swim through water, extracting unwanted material and gathering data about the marine environment.

The company markets and sells three distinctive products, which have zero greenhouse emissions and act as intelligent tools to cleaning our waters.

The WasteShark® will eat plastics and other litter; detect chemicals in the water; extract alien and pest vegetation.

The DataShark™ which includes the same functionality as the WasteShark is also a learning machine continually collecting data about the marine environment.

Read the full article by Inside Unmanned Systems article

Five ways people are trying to help the environment by cleaning up waste

Eco-friendly: Five ways people are trying to help the environment by cleaning up waste.  Rubbish, waste, pollution – it comes in all shapes and sizes and from lots of different sources.

And the task of working out how to deal with it is a big one.

But from big companies to individual school children, lots of people are doing trying to find new ways to tackle the problem.

Here are five ways people are trying to help the environment:

1) Poo problem

2) Water waste – RanMarine Technology

3) Ready, steady… recycle!

4) Pacific Ocean plastic

5) Carbon Dioxide to ‘coal’

Water Waste – RanMarine Technology

In Devon, on the south coast of England, waste in the harbour is being cleared up by a robot!

Well not a robot with hands and legs, but a small boat-like device which collects waste along its path in the water and recycles the plastic it picks up.

The craft has been launched by WWF and Sky Ocean Rescue to help get plastic, rubbish and pollution out of the waterways, seas and oceans.

It’s been tried out in other countries already, but Devon is the first place in the UK to use it.

Read the full article by BBC article

WWF and SKY launch WasteShark

OUR PARTNERSHIP – WWF and Sky Ocean Rescue have launched an autonomous marine robot in north Devon to help clear Ilfracombe harbour of waste. The WasteShark® will be roaming through distances of up to 5km of water, capturing plastics, microplastics, oils and other pollutants. If used five days a week the WasteShark can collect in excess of 15 tonnes of waste a year, with the plastic recycled to make products.

This is the first time that a WasteShark has been used in the UK, following successful launches in five countries. The WasteShark, which is created by RanMarine Technology, is the world’s first marine robot designed specifically to eat waste and collect data. It is designed to be harmonious with the environment. As it navigates the water the WasteShark emits no carbon, produces no noise or light pollution, and poses no threat to wildlife.

DID YOU KNOW?

Eight million tonnes of plastic are dumped in the oceans each year, with catastrophic consequences for wildlife. 90% of the world’s sea birds have fragments of plastic in their stomachs, while up to 80% of mussels taken from a number of British beaches were found to contain microplastics.

WASTE SHARK IN ACTION

Through our work with Sky Ocean Rescue we are launching the WasteShark, to improve the health of our seas. This includes Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), which, though designated for their environmental importance, face threats from a number of issues, including plastic pollution.

Ilfracombe Harbour is within a MPA that is home to diverse species, it boasts some of UK’s most diverse and incredible wildlife – including grey seals and pink sea fan corals. Collecting waste in the harbour prevents it damaging the immediate area and from being taken out to sea by the tide and threatening the important wildlife in surrounding MPAs.

 

CLEANING UP OUR SEAS

The WasteShark can roam for up to eight hours on one charge. It is programmed with GPS points to ensure that it covers hotspots where waste gathers, and its path can be programmed and monitored remotely. Along with removing waste, the WasteShark can collect important data about the marine environment.

Read the full article by WWF article