Help Wanted: Someone To Become A Famous Engineer

Yikes. I picked out a graphic, and couldn't get permission to use it. I'm not sure why--no explanation was given. It provided stats on types of pollutants, including syringes, balloons, six-pack plastic joiners, and various debris from seafood-harvesting objects. I'm not going to name names, because it's a great cause and doesn't need to sound small for any reason, even association with a potential misunderstanding. Suffice to say it was a good graphic, and I'm sorry I don't have another one in time to publish this. The message is still the same.

I am a little confused about why syringes would be that commonly lost on beaches. The rest of it I can sort of understand. I know people eat fish, drink beer, and float balloons . One of those times is coming up again July 4rth.

It's my understanding that if the ocean dies, life on planet Earth dies. That does follow from the virtual models I've looked at, histories I've read, and my good old common sense. (When you ruin a dominant part of the ecology, you ruin it all.) The lives you save could be yours and mine.

Question.

It's coming. I blogged recently about a certain renewable resource. It could easily be combined with trash collection. Does anybody out there know an engineer who could sketch me a model, eco-friendly, trash-snagging-but-ignorable-by-marine-life, light enough to fit in a pickup truck, sturdy enough to hang/float from a pier and take 2000-Newton waves? I'm guessing that at only 50% efficiency, such a device could last three months before needing some new bolts and collect up to a dozen pounds of scrap plastic in the same amount of time.