A German initiative is betting on a modular vessel to collect plastic before waste spreads, with a declared capacity of up to two tons per trip and a proposal to transform the cleaning of rivers and coastal areas into a continuous, structured service integrated with land-based recycling.
A German initiative led by the organization One Earth – One Ocean The company is betting on vessels designed to collect floating debris before the plastic fragments and spreads, with a prototype nicknamed… manatee which is presented as being able to remove up to two tons per trip.
Instead of relying solely on community clean-up efforts, the project advocates transforming the cleaning of rivers, canals, and coastal areas into a continuous operation, with logistics and scale similar to a collection “service,” connecting water-based removal to sorting and land-based disposal.
Seekuh: How the marine cow-ship for collecting plastic works
Name manateeThe term, which in German means “sea cow,” came to be used to identify a cleanup catamaran designed to operate where trash concentrates on the surface, such as oil slicks in coastal areas, bay entrances, and stretches of current that act as accumulation corridors.
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German marine cow-ship collects up to 2 tons of plastic per trip and offers an ongoing river and sea cleaning service.
The concept gained visibility after being described by the Bundespreis Ecodesign, a German design award, which attributes to the equipment the capacity to collect up to two tons of plastic per run and notes that, in the current stage, the collected material is sent for recycling on land.
Although the volume depends on operating conditions and the type of waste found, the repetition of the number in materials and reports indicates the project’s focus: removing a lot in a short time, always targeting what is in the top layer, which is more susceptible to wind and transport to the open sea.
Günther Bonin and the origin of One Earth – One Ocean
Leading the initiative is Günther Bonin, cited by various institutional sources as a former information technology entrepreneur who began dedicating his work to combating water pollution after personal experiences during voyages in which he observed the disposal and presence of waste in the sea.
Bonin founded One Earth – One Ocean in 2011, and since then, the association has implemented a “maritime waste collection” strategy, using vessels of different sizes for different environments, such as urban rivers, lakes, estuaries, and shallow coastal areas.
A report by Deutschlandfunk Kultur describes the Seekuh as a collection structure mounted on a catamaran, with netting and a frame positioned between the hulls to capture floating trash, functioning like a kind of “shovel” that collects the material and facilitates its removal.
Towed funnel system with a capacity of up to 2 tons per trip.
German marine cow-ship collects up to 2 tons of plastic per trip and offers an ongoing river and sea cleaning service.
According to the technical description released by the organization itself, the catamaran is approximately 12 by 10 meters and carries, between its two hulls, retractable nets with a 2,5-centimeter mesh, designed to collect debris up to approximately two meters deep, prioritizing plastic on the surface.
The same project page states that, currently, the system can collect up to two tons “per trip or network,” a formulation that reinforces the operational nature of the equipment and suggests adapting the method according to the location, the type of litter patch, and the capture strategy used.
In addition to the catamaran itself, the initiative describes an operational design that relies on concentrating the trash before capture, using floating barriers to form a “funnel” that guides the waste to a collection point, reducing the scattering caused by wind and currents.
When collection takes place in larger areas, the logic presented by the project is to work with towed structures and motorized support to transport the mass of waste to the capture area, an attempt to make the process less dependent on one-off actions and more routine.
Modular structure and container transport
One of the points used to justify expanding the concept is modularity, since One Earth – One Ocean claims that the Seekuh can be disassembled and stored in four 40-foot containers, which would allow the vessel to be transported for operations in different regions.
German marine cow-ship collects up to 2 tons of plastic per trip and offers an ongoing river and sea cleaning service.
The maritime journal THB also notes the requirement that the catamaran be “zerlegbar,” that is, demountable, and reports that the modules can be packed for shipping, while also reiterating the capacity of about two tons per trip and describing the depth limitation of the nets.
In practice, the organization itself has already used this argument in international actions, such as when it reported having sent the Seekuh to Hong Kong after dismantling and transporting it in containers, associating the operation with the idea of demonstrating the model to local decision-makers and partners.
Chain of vessels: SeeHamster and SeeElefant
Within the portfolio, the NGO describes smaller vessels, such as the SeeHamster, presented as a compact unit for inland waters, and it is reported that these catamarans were used as an initial practical implementation of the concept in 2012, operating on lakes and rivers.
At the opposite extreme, the organization presents the See Elephant as a process vessel to expand the scale of sorting and reuse, with institutional material that projects high annual capacity and mentions the objective of integrating collection, classification and processing stages.
This “chain” design attempts to address the central logistical challenge: removing waste from the water only solves the first part of the problem, while the next step involves transportation, sorting, and disposal, in a scenario where degraded, contaminated, or mixed waste can lose value and require solutions compatible with local regulations.
German marine cow-ship collects up to 2 tons of plastic per trip and offers an ongoing river and sea cleaning service.
Limits of collection and integration with waste management.
In presenting land-based recycling as the current stage, the Bundespreis Ecodesign also describes plans to process plastic on board larger ships in the future, a topic that often arises alongside the technical and regulatory debate on emissions, efficiency, and the industrial viability of conversion routes.
On the other hand, even when the collection technology works, the operation needs to address navigation safety, maintenance and monitoring, as well as coordination with authorities, because collecting waste in urban waterways, estuaries and coastal areas involves vessel traffic and current variability.
Still, the strength of the proposal lies in the attempt to make cleaning measurable and recurring, using numbers like “up to two tons per trip” to gauge removal capacity and, at the same time, highlight the size of the available waste load in certain sections.
If the project attempts to prove that it’s possible to remove plastic before it fragments, the public question that remains is one of governance: why does the collection of floating debris still rarely become a permanent activity, with targets, a budget, and formal integration with land-based waste management?