This Genius Bucket Sucks Trash And Oil Right Out Of The Sea

Two Australian surfers have quit their jobs  and come up with a brilliant solution to combat the millions of tons of trash in our oceans.

Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski's Seabin invention  is an ocean-cleaning device so simple and effective, we're wondering why it took so long.

The water filtration system is much like what you'd find in a fish tank, but it has the potential to clean up an entire ocean:

The Seabin  can be installed at any floating dock and is designed to suck up any trash or oil floating nearby in harbors.

The concept is simple: A bucket, as seen in the GIF above, connects to a water pump, sucking in any floating trash inside a removable mesh bag.

There is also an optional oil-water separator system inside the pump. It can remove oil and detergents from the seawater before spitting it back into the ocean -- pollution-free -- through the other side of the pump.

"It essentially works as a similar concept to a skimmer box from your pool filter ," Richard Talmage, a Seabin spokesman, told Australian news show 9 News. 

The Seabin can run 24/7 , according to its Indiegogo page. And, amazingly, Turton and Ceglinski say they have never caught a fish or marine animal in their pumps in four years of testing.

The Seabin aims to improve on the traditional -- and sometimes expensive -- harbor-cleaning methods of having a person physically remove trash from the water or sending boats equipped with nets to collect it.

While it's not as extensive as 21-year-old Boyan Slat's plan to clean the entire Pacific Ocean in 10 years , starting in 2020, Seabin's creators said their device is something that harbors can start using to clean our oceans now.

They're starting "close to the source of the problem in a controlled environment," Seabin's website states. "It's a big mission, but it can be done. In fact, we're doing it right now."

Turton and Ceglinski have spent a decade perfecting the Seabin prototype in a design center in Palma de Mallorca , Spain, but now they are turning to crowdfunding to start producing Seabins on a larger scale -- focusing on marinas and yacht clubs as their target market.

"We want to build it in the most sustainable and ecologically responsible way we can ," Ceglinski told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "But to do that it's quite expensive, so we thought to give crowd funding a go."

As of this writing, the Seabin's Indiegogo campaign has reached 85 percent of its $230,000 goal with less than 50 hours to go.

Below, see the Seabin in action or learn more about their project at the Seabin crowdfunding page.

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