http://auvac.org/newsitems/view/1659

Fourteen billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean each year—90 percent of which is plastic. That percentage has been increasing at a rate of about 10 percent each year for the past 20 years.

Although cleaning up the ocean’s “plastic soup” has been deemed beyond fixable by a number of researchers, innovative designers are taking a more proactive approach. A few are developing new technologies that they believe will make a significant impact—the latest being the “Marine Drone. The drone is basically an over sized pool net with a sensor fitted machine. It nets drifting plastic trash in a very innovative way. Several drones scout the seas for waste and use a special sensor to keep away fish and other aquatic animals. It is equipped with an infra sound system and the high-powered batteries allow them to stay in the water for more than 2 weeks.

This relates to real world engineering because it gives us a way to automate cleaning oceans. It also will let cleaning ocean take much less time than before. It also will relieve most of the stress that countries have to clean up the Oceans using human resources, and now they can use capitol.