Student wins design prize for microplastic collecting robot fish

A student at the University of Surrey has designed a robot fish capable of filtering waterways to collect microplastics. The digital code is open source too, so anyone with access to a 3D printer can create their own.

Microplastics are an ecological menace that have only really entered global discourse in the last few years.

Making up close to 92% of the estimated 5.25 trillion plastic objects floating on the ocean’s surface, these tiny traces of polymer toxify waterways globally and harm biodiversity. A concerning study back in March even detected microplastics in the blood of most human participants.

Getting any real stranglehold on the plastic crisis, we now know, relies on our ability to collect these tiny fragments of plastic as well as standard throwaway items.

As of today, however, there’s no wide-scale standard for removing it and we’re still weighing up a bunch of different solutions.