PortsToronto Dives In to Trash Trapping Program Seabins At First Public (Sea)Bin Dive

On Friday, August 5, to celebrate the expansion of the PortsToronto Trash Trapping Program along the waterfront, we held our first public (Sea)Bin Dive with our partners, the University of Toronto Trash Team (Trash Team) at Marina Quay West.

The 12 Seabins in the Trash Trapping Program network divert tens of thousands of pieces of small plastic from Lake Ontario each year. These ‘floating trash cans’ clean up litter from the water’s surface by acting like a vacuum, scooping up debris floating by.

Each day, the Trash Team, empties the Seabins deployed in the Toronto Harbour using a unique extraction technique to separate the plastic debris from the natural material, then counts and characterizes the materials captured.  

This process helps us further understand the origination of floating plastic and litter in the Toronto Harbour, and informs technological and behavioural solutions to prevent these materials from entering Lake Ontario in the first place.

The (Sea)Bin Dive provided the community as well as our partners from Nieuport Aviation, the Waterfront Business Improvement Area (WBIA), Harbourfront Centre, Swim Drink Fish, and Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) the opportunity to get a hands-on experience of this process.

The contents of three Seabins were collected and characterized. First, larger materials (macro plastics) were documented. Then, following a demonstration of the Trash Team’s sieve extraction technique to separate the micro plastics, hundreds of large and small pieces of plastic pollution were recorded.

This event provided a unique educational experience with the discovery of a fatberg, a rock-like mass formed by the combination of fat, grease and wastewater materials, collected in one of the Seabins following a storm event. This discovery was a powerful reminder to watch what you put down the drain (no fat or cooking grease!) as it may end up where you least expect it – in our Seabins. Learn more in this BlogTO piece.