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Meet The Trash Interceptor Called 007 That Is Working To Clean Up The Mess From This Storm
Ballona Creek's 007 trash interceptor is now working on the trash from the latest storm.
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Courtesy Business Wire
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Topline:
Los Angeles County's Trash Interceptor 007 is experiencing its first winter storm season and it's on a mission to collect tons of floating trash from Ballona Creek near Playa del Rey.
Why it matters: This month alone, the solar-powered barge swallowed about 5 1/2 tons of garbage. That brings its total to more than 60 tons of debris collected since October — which is more than what the county estimates typically flows out of rivers and streams annually and into the ocean.
Why now: The "exceptional" amount of trash comes after three years of drought, according to Kerjon Lee of the county's public works department. Lee told us:
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"So what you have is a cleansing of the system or a purging of the system and if we don't catch it it often ends towards the ocean."
What's next: The stuff collected by the trash inceptor then gets offloaded and sorted for recycling. The device is being paid for and tested during a two-year pilot program by the Dutch nonprofit The Ocean Clean-Up.
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