{"id":52335,"date":"2025-03-09T15:42:39","date_gmt":"2025-03-09T07:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/?p=52335"},"modified":"2025-03-10T16:02:52","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T08:02:52","slug":"styrofoam-no-match-for-hong-kong-robot-that-collects-marine-rubbish-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/styrofoam-no-match-for-hong-kong-robot-that-collects-marine-rubbish-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Styrofoam no match for Hong Kong robot that collects marine rubbish"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PolyU engineers invented Galatea the robot after Sai Kung club sought help to solve marine trash problem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hong Kong\u2019s Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club faced an uphill battle for years, as it tried to clean up the marine debris that washed ashore at its waterfront location in Sai Kung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workers had a never-ending task of gathering seaweed, large baskets and plastic. But the hardest to retrieve was styrofoam junk, because the material could disintegrate into tiny bits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, a robot cleaner named Galatea, is proving to be a big help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The robot, developed by Polytechnic University (PolyU) engineers, targets minuscule plastic waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Club chairman Jack Wong Wai-kwong said: \u201cIt has helped us save about two workers for debris clean-up. It was extremely difficult to collect small items such as styrofoam, and the robot was invented to solve the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The club turned to Chan Luen-chow, a research professor at PolyU, at the department of industrial and systems engineering, for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The robot took two years to develop, with the device tested at the club late last year and put into full-time operation at Clear Water Bay in January. The club said it cost more than HK$1 million (US$128,700).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chan and a team of five looked at similar machines designed overseas but found them unsuitable because they were made for different types of junk from the sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The marine debris overseas mainly consists of branches, which is different from the styrofoam found in Hong Kong,” he side. The methods of gathering rubbish also varied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His team designed Galatea as a floating platform made of metal and a repurposed rubbish bin. It has two rotating belts which create a whirling force that can gather and suck in the marine waste. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chan said by generating a vortex of sufficient force, the machine was able to suck up even the tiniest styrofoam particles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I hope the robot can be widely adopted in the community, including in public areas, to make a more significant contribution in the future,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to marine environmental scientists at City University, about 3.2 billion pieces of tiny plastic pollutants flow from Hong Kong drains into the sea every day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The environmental group WWF has estimated that at least 11 million tonnes of plastic enter the world’s oceans every year, posting substantial threats to marine ecosystems and humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PolyU engineers invented Galat…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[296],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-club-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52335"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52343,"href":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52335\/revisions\/52343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cwbgolf.org\/zh-hant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}