TORONTO, Ontario – The Council of the Great Lakes Region (CGLR), thanks to funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada, has announced the launch of the first phase of the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup initiative (www.greatlakesplasticcleanup.org) with founding partners Pollution Probe, the University of Toronto Trash Team, Boating Ontario, PortsToronto, as well as collaborators EnviroPod, Water Products and Solutions-America, Poralu Marine and Georgian Bay Forever. The CGLR features the largest deployment of Litta Trap and Seabin technology (per photo from PortsToronto) in the world.

Plastic debris accounts for around 80% of the litter found on Great Lakes shorelines. In fact, it is estimated that a staggering 10 million kilograms of plastic enters the largest freshwater system in the world each year from Canada and the United States. It could cost more than $400 million annually to curtail plastic pollution through beach and waterway cleanups, public anti-littering campaigns, and the development and deployment of innovative capture and cleanup technologies.

Through the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup initiative, CGLR, working alongside its project partners, will spearhead and support the largest single deployment of two innovative technologies in the world, the Seabin (https://seabinproject.com/) and the LittaTrap (www.enviropod.com/), to capture and recover plastic debris along Ontario’s Great Lakes shorelines.

In total, 16 Seabin devices will be installed through this of phase of the initiative, which will help researchers study plastic pollution in our waterways as well as reinforce the importance of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” the iconic phrase coined by Pollution Probe in the early 1970s that today has global reach and a new significance as we shift to a circular future. In addition to the installation of Seabin devices, 10 LittaTrap™ devices will be deployed at a select number of marinas to capture and prevent the flow of plastic and other debris from entering the lakes.