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Can AI Ever Be Sustainable?

Posted on October 9, 2023October 9, 2023 by dishanth

The AI genie is out of the bottle. There is no going back, but we can make it more sustainable. Here’s how.

AI is here, and it has a big footprint. As a recent article in the Guardian pointed out, AI is already a vast resource hog in its current form.

Like the intense energy consumption that the crypto mining industry experiences, the data centers that power the AI are already at par with and will soon exceed them; with AI, though, the energy consumption problem is worse for a few important reasons. The computers that power crypto mining are a big part. Of course, they use a lot of energy; they are on the fringe of legality and social acceptance. Everyone knows it. Most of us have read about someone stealing power from the grid to power illicit mining rigs.

But not so with AI.

To most who use it, using an AI like Microsoft Bing or Google Bard feels like using a search engine. You type your search term or query, and a second later, you receive the reply. Repeat and refine as you go. It seems simple and harmless; after all, the companies that run these machines are some of the most trusted household names.

You don’t search for something; you Google it.

But behind the scenes are millions upon millions of connected computers housed in large data centers. Most are in faraway places with low taxes, cheap power, and lots of free water.

Water, because it’s not just about energy anymore either; it’s now also about water as a coolant. These machines generate immense amounts of heat as they process all the information required to create the silicon functional equivalent of thousands of artificial brains. Water cooling is the best way to get the heat out of the machines. The cheapest way to do that is to have a large constant supply of fresh water that can enter the system cool and exit the system hot – bringing with it the excess heat created in the machines.

There are other unaccounted costs as well. According to Uptime Institute’s Global Data Center Survey 2021, the global data center industry replaces an estimated 2.5 million servers annually. This number will grow to 3.2 million servers by 2025. Sure, some are recycled, but if the number is the same as general electronic waste, only 17.4% of servers are recycled, and the vast majority end up as e-waste.

Despite this bleak picture, I’m confident it will get sorted quickly. At a glance, the focused use of renewable energy generation for data centers is an evident and technologically-ready solution. Solar power installation is currently 90% cheaper than ten years ago and is still falling, even during this inflation period.

The cost of solar panels has fallen by about 80% in the past ten years. This is due to the increasing efficiency of solar cells and the economies of scale achieved in the solar manufacturing industry. The cost of other components, such as inverters and mounting systems, has also fallen in recent years. Governments in many countries have offered financial incentives to encourage the adoption of solar power. These incentives have helped to reduce the cost of solar power installation due to a surge in availability and local production of high-quality solar panels.

In the case of data centers, the energy required will come from renewables and will not have the same footprint as it did five or even ten years ago. In some cases, the energy consumed will have a net zero or possibly a negative carbon footprint.

Solution Water

Closed-circuit geothermal cooling systems are an evident and easy-to-implement solution for water consumption. Rather than using the cold water from a river or reservoir and risk heating and damaging natural river and lake systems, geothermal systems can create a contained and efficient cooling system.

For smaller systems, a ground-source heat pump would suffice. This type of system uses a series of pipes that are buried in the ground to extract or transfer heat. The pipes are filled with thermal conductive fluid that is cooled by the ground. The cooled fluid is then circulated through the data center and used to cool the servers inside.

For larger systems, a water-source heat pump would provide cooling. This type of system uses water pumped from a well into the data center to extract heat and cool the servers. The heated water is pumped back into the well to be cooled by the Earth, and the cycle begins again, with the only operational cost being the pumps that circulate the water.

Geothermal systems are very efficient at extracting or transferring heat. This can help to save energy and money on cooling costs. Geothermal systems can run on renewable energy, so do not produce any emissions and do not cause immediate damage to riparian areas, so they are considered environmentally friendly. Finally, geothermal systems are very reliable and can operate for many years without any problems and require little maintenance and can last for up to 50 years in ideal conditions.

Solution Hardware Churn

The automatic and mindless replacement of millions of servers worldwide seems flawed. Indeed, there are business critical machines that must be replaced to have 100% uptime, but applying that mentality to all servers is extreme and flawed. It results in unnecessary waste of machines that are still fit to function, until something fails.

The servers could be made to last longer. Currently, due to technology upgrades and other factors, the average lifespan of a server is only 3-5 years. The major hardware components of servers could easily be designed to last 20 or more years with only upgrades to specific components as technology increases. This would ensure they maintain valuable and relevant for the longest period of time and would save enormous amounts of valuable hardware resources from ending up in the waste pile.

The components and systems that must be replaced could be recycled more effectively, with much of the precious elements recaptured for reuse in new components. Similar to the recycling systems now being deployed by ROSI in France for solar panels, the same process could be applied to servers and their components. In the ROSI system, 99% of the elements in a solar panel can be recaptured. Severs have a variety of precious elements inside them; a high-efficiency recycling process would recapture gold, silver, platinum, copper, and palladium.

A Bigger (Flawed) Picture

The bigger problem is the fact that the current AI business model is flawed. Most AI programs are run as typical capitalist profit machines, only open to the public as toys and tools for writing or entertainment. The is a gold rush mentality right now where all the players are vying for position and the attention of investors.

To be successful, therefore, they need to exploit resources (energy, water, and hardware) as cheaply as possible to make the product that they sell for as high a price as possible. If the actual cost of the energy and water were factored in – cost to society and the planet – many of these so-called profit centers would disappear overnight.

It is hard to believe that some of the largest companies in the world, which, through the application of proprietary AI, are fundamentally changing the way humans live and work, are not paying their fair share of taxes. These companies are making billions of dollars in profits while striking deals with governments to avoid paying the true costs of running their businesses.

They set up in low or no-tax jurisdictions manipulating local governments who make concessions to normal business applications based on the promise of offshoots or trickle-down economic benefits, such as jobs and ancillary services. But if the situation becomes less than favorable, these mega companies leave town and move on to the next host like a parasite.

This is no different from many other subsidized, so-called capitalist businesses. Most of the fossil fuel industry, bottled water, junk food, wheat, soy, automotive, and many other industries would simply not have a business case if the actual cost of production was felt. If the real cost to operate an AI data center were factored in, fewer people would be using it. That could be a good thing.

Do we need to rely on AI more than we do already? Let’s be real; we were able to communicate, make recipes, plan our trips, and all the other things before AI; there is no reason we can’t do it now too.

The Solution

If there was a requirement for AI companies to manage their own environmental impact, for real, and if there were strict controls on the use of AI. It could begin to be used for a higher purpose. It would be used for things like reducing the effects of climate change, developing drought-resistant crops, fixing broken cities, improving the welfare of developing nations, or for medical advances like less invasive therapies, advanced antibiotics, and vaccines.

The best part is that all this is possible and happening now. Many governments are placing tighter restrictions on the use of AI, and others are forcing big corporate consumers to include a full accounting of all their combined footprints. These days, the responsible corporation includes details of all aspects of its footprint. AI is already being used for the benefit of society and the planet, we just need to find the right balance of use and benefit, and I believe we can; it’s just a matter of time.

Knowing that makes me very hopeful for the future and the use of AI.

Source Happy Eco News

How to move towards a more sustainable supply chain

Posted on August 26, 2022 by dishanth

Supply chain leaders are under pressure from all sides to become more sustainable, not just from board-level executives but also from customers and investors. In fact, research by Celonis and IBM found that more than half of Chief Supply Chain Officers (CSCOs) would be willing to sacrifice up to 5% of profit to become more sustainable.

One key way of improving sustainability is getting rid of process inefficiencies which create significant waste and increase unnecessary emissions. Excess stock or production waste is often the result of unclear processes, miscalculations, quality deficiencies, or capacity bottlenecks. The materials and products wasted in the process drive up costs and have a negative impact on a company’s carbon footprint. But it’s often the case that companies can’t even see hidden process problems.

Through data-powered process mining, it is possible to find and fix the hidden process problems that you don’t know you have and improve your sustainability performance.

The missing data

The sustainable procurement of materials is fundamental to achieving overall sustainability in the supply chain. Transparency with regard to the exact ecological and social impacts of suppliers is important. However, this is precisely where sufficient insight is often lacking or information is not always available in a timely manner.

Shipping delays at ports worldwide have wreaked havoc on global supply chains, with research suggesting that as little as 34% of container vessels arrived without any delay to their destination in February 2022. This statistic is only a glimpse of the huge inefficiencies in supply chain that lead to unnecessary carbon emissions and a negative environmental impact. As an example, 1.6 billion tonnes of food are wasted each year, contributing to roughly 8% of the world’s carbon emissions. 78% of this waste occurs before the food reaches the consumer due to inefficient supply chains, meaning food is actually perishing before it hits supermarket shelves. Businesses are therefore forced to order more food than is needed in order to account for the shortfall.

A common problem here is that decision-makers simply do not have the necessary information for climate-friendly route planning, and the amount of data is one of the biggest obstacles. What seems paradoxical at first glance has its roots in the increasing number of IT systems and applications as well as the virtually exploding mass of stored information. Whereas 25 years ago even larger companies worked with only a handful of different IT systems, today there are usually hundreds, often with numerous applications being used to support a single process. This complexity leads to breaks and inefficiencies in processes that cannot be detected, let alone fixed, with traditional methods.

At the same time, these weak points mean unnecessary consumption of resources and thus increased costs and avoidable CO2 emissions.

Why process mining works

This is exactly where process mining and execution management come in. Process mining works like an X-ray machine for internal procedures and can illuminate and subsequently optimise critical business processes. It does this by visualising the current state of internal operations, including all process variants on the basis of data. With valid, data-based insights across all procedures it is possible to break down silos and incorporate sustainability into every decision or measure. All processes and different data sources are taken into account. By bringing together data from all common IT systems, such as SAP, Oracle or Salesforce, and mapping it in its actual form, business processes become holistically understandable.

By applying process mining and the right execution management in this way, companies can shrink the time it takes to find a process problem from years to hours, and make great leaps and bounds in sustainability goals in a short span of time.

The path to sustainability

Making a business more sustainable actually has a positive effect on the bottom line. Some of the world’s leading companies measure the impact of inefficiencies within their supply chain processes in order to minimise resource waste. Process mining and execution management helps these companies find and realise opportunities to significantly optimise fuel consumption, yielding material, financial and environmental benefits.

Carbon commitments and sustainability goals are no longer seen as afterthoughts. Rather, they are fundamental aspects of a company’s overarching business strategy. As processes determine how businesses run, they enable operational and even systemic change. Once processes are analysed and improved with intelligence and data execution, it becomes possible to prioritise sustainability in every operational decision.

This continuous measurability is a crucial aspect for many companies in view of the increasingly strict regulatory requirements. To put it in a nutshell: AI-supported technologies and continuous follow-up are the prerequisites for a sustainability process that is ‘sustainable’ in the literal sense of the word.

Source Edie

Nurturing greener tenants for more sustainable buildings

Posted on March 28, 2022 by dishanth

Switching lights off when they are not in use, turning up the temperature on air-conditioning, and saving water – these may seem like small actions, but they are vital to the fight against climate change.

Today, buildings are responsible for nearly 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, with their construction and operations contributing 11 per cent and 28 per cent respectively. Efforts to improve their sustainability are not going far enough, and buildings remain “off track” to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 according to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in November.

Managing climate-friendly and energy-efficient buildings is crucial to achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably under 1.5°C, but there are many challenges.

“Since 2010, rising demand for energy services in buildings – particularly electricity to power cooling equipment, appliances and connected devices – has been outpacing energy efficiency and decarbonisation gains,” the IEA said. “Very high temperatures and prolonged heatwaves set records in many countries, driving up demand for air-conditioning.”

The United Nations, in its latest climate assessment published in February, added that if greenhouse gas emissions remain high, all Asian regions studied in the report – Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam – will be affected by dangerously high heat and humidity levels, sea level rise, flooding and other physical climate risks.

As governments aim to meet ambitious climate goals, they will increasingly look to the building sector to reduce its impact on the environment.

By accelerating digitalisation and embracing the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other innovative digital technologies, we can achieve smarter, healthier and more sustainable buildings.

Chang Sau Sheong, chief executive, SP Digital

In Singapore, for instance, buildings make up over a third of the country’s electricity consumption. The city-state’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA) notes that the built environment plays a “major role” in helping to achieve the national sustainability agenda to tackle climate change and global warming.

This presents huge opportunities, and challenges, for landlords trying to drive efficiencies in commercial buildings. Technology is key in this effort, according to SP Digital, the digital arm of SP Group, a utilities group in Asia Pacific that focuses on low carbon, smart energy solutions.

“By accelerating digitalisation and embracing the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other innovative digital technologies, we can achieve smarter, healthier and more sustainable buildings,” said Chang Sau Sheong, chief executive of SP Digital.

Mindset shifts key to green buildings

Setting regulatory benchmarks and fiscal policies has helped to green buildings and boost efficiencies. Technologies and smart systems have also improved sustainability. But changing the behaviour of landlords and tenants could prove to be the biggest hurdle yet.

Dr Clayton Miller, assistant professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) who leads its Building and Urban Data Science Lab, told Eco-Business that there are many underused green building technologies, including innovative cooling systems that tap on high temperature radiant, desiccant dehumidification and mixed-mode ventilation.

“There are too many decision-makers who want to play it safe and stick with conventional systems, because they are afraid that trying something different will bring problems,” he said.

Some property owners and landlords may be put off by the costs and difficulties of retrofitting older buildings for sustainability. For example, installing green technologies may require space that is scarce in buildings not designed for them.

“With the myriad of green technologies out there, one of the key challenges that building owners may face is simply how and where to start the retrofitting process,” added Associate Professor Kua Harn Wei, of the Department of the Built Environment, NUS School of Design and Environment.

A smart way to achieve sustainability

Tenants may be stymied by a lack of data too, noted Chang. “Most landlords and property owners provide monthly utility bills, which makes it challenging for tenants to know how and where to best focus their efficiency efforts, and track how they are faring,” according to Chang.

A typical office in Singapore expends most – 60 per cent – of its energy on cooling, according to BCA. Lighting takes up 15 per cent of consumption.

GET TenantCare is a smart and automated tenant submetering solution designed to help landlords and property owners efficiently manage tenant utilities consumption. [Click to enlarge] Image: SP Digital.

To give tenants and landlords more granular data to manage their energy and water use, SP Digital created Green Energy Tech (GET) TenantCare, a smart and automated tenant submetering solution. Tenants and landlords can get visibility of their utilities consumption in granularity of 30-minute intervals, unlocking more ways to save electricity and water. The platform not only increases operational efficiency, but can improve tenant engagement that will drive sustainability efforts, Chang said.

As a tenant, for instance, you can better understand how you use electricity, get alerted to unusual usage earlier, find out which of your equipment is using a lot of energy, whether through faults or inefficiency, and make changes to lower your energy consumption.

“If you’re a landlord, you can use our solution to automatically calculate your tenants’ energy use intensity, based on their units’ energy usage and gross floor area. You can identify which tenants are using more electricity than expected and engage with them to persuade them to adopt more energy-efficient equipment or habits,” Chang said.

Smart technologies have other advantages. With GET TenantCare’s automated meter readings, landlords do not have to deploy manpower to check on and read the meters. This also eliminates human errors in the readings.

Smart building management systems, connected to motion and other occupancy sensors and weather forecasting systems, can automatically adjust air-conditioning temperatures, switch off unneeded lights, and do more to save electricity and water while maintaining comfort for occupants.

Promoting greener behaviours

With insights from smart technologies leading to quick wins in energy and water savings, landlords and tenants may be more motivated to continue on their sustainability journey.

“If people have good experiences trying out sustainable behaviours, they are likely to repeat them and form green habits over time,” Dr Sonny Rosenthal, cluster director of smart and sustainable building technologies at the Energy Research Institute at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), told Eco-Business.

Other novel systems and ideas could enable tenants and landlords to work in tandem to slash the carbon footprint of the buildings they occupy.

SP Digital’s GET Engaged solution is a digital dashboard that provides updates on buildings’ electricity and water use, and the resulting carbon emissions. When displayed in lobbies and other public areas, the information could spur tenants to make more sustainable choices.

Equipping people with relevant skills is essential too. Last year, the Singapore government launched the Sustainability in Singapore programme, which trains people from organisations to be green ambassadors.

This includes teaching them how to design effective sustainability campaigns to persuade their colleagues and other occupants in their buildings to be more environmentally friendly.

BCA chief executive Kelvin Wong explained: “As a building user myself, we tend to think that staying in green buildings alone is sufficient. But this is not true. Practising sustainable behaviour within building premises is equally important to make the most of green buildings.”

“Hand in hand, both green buildings and sustainable user behaviour would translate to lower carbon emissions, with the added advantage of monetary savings,” he added.

The BCA has also created “green lease” toolkits to guide landlords and tenants in crafting mutually-agreed-upon, sustainability-related agreements for office and retail buildings. These would set out objectives for how the building is to be improved, managed and occupied to reduce its impact on the environment.

Greener buildings go beyond providing environmental and economic benefits, Chang noted. Greener buildings can also enhance occupants’ health and overall well-being.

Source Eco Business

Students for sustainability… Thryft founders Eddie Lim, Chow Jia Yu and Tan Ye Kai

Posted on December 15, 2021December 16, 2021 by dishanth

What started as a weekend passion project between friends, Thryft is now established as Singapore’s first sustainable online bookstore.

Thryft is an online site that allows people to trade in second-hand books in exchange for credits that can be spent on the platform. A group of students, Eddie Lim, Choy Jia Yu and Tan Ye Kai conceived the idea while studying at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The founders hope that by encouraging people to resell books and buy pre-loved ones, it will minimise waste. Old books gain a new lease of life while avid readers can create space for exciting new reads. Thryft has resold over 12,000 second-hand books since it began operating two years ago.

The platform uses algorithms to determine the trade-in value based on the current first-hand retail price, popularity and market saturation. Thryft’s community commitment operates on a 10, 50, and 100 per cent model. Ten per cent of their profits go to non-profit organisations on a quarterly basis to support tackling urgent environmental and social issues. Fifty per cent of their profits are donated to various social organisations. Non-profit organisations are able to list their books on the platform at no cost and take back 100 per cent of the profits from what they manage to sell.

Eco-Business sat down with the three bookworms to learn more about Thryft, their personal experiences in running a business, and the advice they would give to other budding entrepreneurs looking to make a name in the sustainability sphere.

Eddie: To add on to that, I don’t think many people know that we’re still students. Customers can be very demanding because they expect a full-time team to be behind Thryft. Even still, we try to be closely aligned to professional standards.

With the surge of e-books in recent years, why did you choose to focus on physical books?

Ye Kai: If you look at the statistics in the past five years or so, after the initial surge of e-books in 2014-2016, we saw a steady decline and instead it was more ‘trendy’ to have print books. In the United Kingdom alone, 200 million physical books were sold last year. But, where do all the books end up? That was an important question we wanted to answer.

Eddie: There’s also an alarming statistic that every Singaporean household has an average of 52 books. With over 1.3 million households, that’s over 68 million books just lying around. So what can we do about all these resources? According to data, the trend is still increasing. These are key questions that we are trying to address.

What are your thoughts on the sustainability scene in Singapore?

Jia Yu: There’s a growing urgency where people are beginning to realise there is a need to reduce their plastic usage. People are also looking for more sustainable options when they shop. Especially in the past three years, there are more brands offering sustainable clothing or household items. There are more secondhand stores too. It’s encouraging to see this mindset gain popularity.

Do you think that the Asian/Singaporean stigma towards second-hand items is changing?

Eddie: Unfortunately, there aren’t many statistics or a lot of data in Singapore. However, the largest online second-hand fashion retailer in the United States, ThredUp, has said that it is outgrowing the traditional retail market by 11 times. There’s a general acceptance of second-hand items, particularly by millennials who are slowly reaching the stage where they have purchasing power. In that sense, the trend is likely to continue. Although there aren’t many robust reports available here, there are many sustainability-focused businesses popping up, so it definitely carries on in Singapore as well.

What advice would you give to young entrepreneurs looking to start a sustainable organisation like Thryft?

Jia Yu: One piece of advice would be to think about systems. Everything is interlinked and for us, because we’re trying to facilitate the movement of second-hand goods, our focus is placed on building a system that works for people. For entrepreneurs looking to start their own company, they should explore how their ideas can link systems together too.

You have to see meaning in what you do too. Owning a business is often difficult, and it’s very easy to get lost in all the operational or logistic challenges. Our motivation is making a circular economy of books within Singapore and Southeast Asia, as well as opening up opportunities for people who don’t have access to second-hand books. It helps push us and keeps us focused on what we’re really doing here.

Ye Kai: My advice is to be aware that you’re in it for the long term. Building a business doesn’t take one or two years, it’s more of a 10 year or more journey. A lot of people our age start with weekend projects just to see where it goes, but it’s important to keep the end in mind. When it shifts from a passion project to an actual business, that is when things get hard.

What does 2022 look like for Thryft?

Eddie: We started having monthly book fairs this year, but because of the pandemic it had to be switched from physical to virtual. Now that things have settled down, we are excited about hosting fairs again next year.

We also recently received the SG Eco Fund grant to run a sustainability fair. The idea is to host it a convention centre where like-minded vendors can set up booths and customers can bring items from their homes to trade them in. It’s a fun way for people who are quite new to sustainability to dip their toes in and try it out.

How did the idea for Thryft come about?

Eddie: I previously worked at a big data and Artificial Intelligence-related startup and I would get at least two cups of coffee every day. Three months into the job, I realised I had amassed over 100 cups. Just the thought of all those cups struck something in me; that an individual can make such a significant impact on the environment. That was when I started getting concerned about sustainability issues.

Our school has a small Facebook group where students can list and sell second-hand textbooks within the community. It got me thinking about what made this idea work compared to my own personal experience on public platforms (like Carousell) which are branded as marketplaces for buyers and sellers. The difference lies in the fact that all us students stay in the same student accommodation which offers great convenience. This allows us to move lower value goods easily and efficiently.

Trying to replicate this on large online marketplaces introduces inconveniences such as location and price negotiation. So, I began brainstorming ways to change the process of moving our pre-loved books quicker. By using data, we have created an algorithm that helps us arrive at a fair value for these second-hand books. This idea started out as a weekend project with friends, where we tested the first version of the algorithm to see how well we predicted prices. It continued from there.

Jia Yu: I started a thrift shop with a few friends when I started college in 2019 and we operated on a point system, whereby people could trade-in clothing for points depending on the quality of the donated item. One of the disadvantages I observed was that it was logistically and operationally challenging. For example, it is difficult to determine the actual value of the clothing, so even if someone traded in a high-end luxury item, it would be priced the same as a cheaper garment. When Eddie came to me with his algorithm, we realised we could help each other out.

What are some challenges you have faced growing this company?

Ye Kai: Aside from the obvious technical aspects that we had to learn, I would say our biggest challenge was just juggling work, school, and personal life. We are all still full-time students, and we started Thryft in Year 2. Trying to build a successful business forced us to learn how to better prioritise our responsibilities.

Source Eco Business

Using Artificial Intelligence to track ocean plastic

Posted on May 22, 2020August 12, 2020 by dishanth

There’s so much plastic in the ocean that sometimes it seems like humans will never be able to tackle it all. Apparently, there are some scientific researchers who feel the same way about humans — so instead, they are using satellites and artificial intelligence to detect ocean plastic.

Earth observation scientists from the UK’s Plymouth Marine Laboratory call their project the first successful study using satellites to detect patches of plastic pollution in the ocean. To conduct the study, which was published in the journal Scientific Reports, the scientists looked at optical data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite fleet.

The satellites were programmed to detect plastic particles larger than 5mm (macroplastics) and distinguish these patches of plastic debris from natural floating objects (like seaweed or driftwood); on average, there was a 86 percent accuracy rate. The researchers used four coastal case study sites: Canada’s Gulf Islands, the east coast of Scotland, the coastal waters off Ghana, and the coastal waters off Da Nang, Vietnam.

Generally, pieces of ocean plastic are too small for satellites to detect from far away — so how did the Plymouth Marine Laboratory team pull this off? They did so by using the satellites to detect plastic’s reflected light signature in the water rather than the plastic itself.

“You’re never going to see an individual plastic bottle floating on the sea, but we can detect aggregations of this material,” author Dr. Lauren Biermann told BBC News ahead of the study being published.

“Vegetation has a good signature that we can look for, whereas plastic has a different signature,” Biermann explained to the news outlet. “So, we can start to un-mix the pixel and say, ‘Right, how much of this pixel that I’ve detected that is nice and bright in my new floating debris index — how much of it seems to be plant material, and how much seems not to be plant material?’”

So, what will the Plymouth team do with this research? Moving forward, they have three steps planned. First, they will work on automating the manual steps for detecting and classifying plastic using the Sentinel-2. Second, they will work on making the detection algorithms more reliable in water with higher turbidity (cloudiness), where it’s harder to visually detect floating objects. And third, they plan to optimize their overall approach to satellite plastics detection, which they will do by gathering data from large rivers, tidal areas, and turbid areas.

Additionally, the researchers believe that their methods can be reproduced using various other remote sensing platforms that are similar to the Sentinel-2, such as drones.

Plastic pollution is a huge issue.

“Plastic pollution is a global issue,” Dr. Biermann said in a statement on Plymouth Marine Laboratory’s website. “This method will hopefully provide a stepping stone for satellites and drones to be used to tackle the marine plastics problem at the end of the product lifecycle. However, we will only ever make meaningful progress if we also tackle the source and reduce the amount of plastics produced.”

How many million tons of plastic are dumped in oceans every year?

Scientists estimate that a whopping 8 million tons of plastic pollution enter our oceans every year. In addition to efforts to detect and remove plastic from the ocean, humans seriously need to work on reducing our reliance on single-use plastics and therefore how much plastic enters and pollutes our oceans.

Scientists Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Detect Ocean Plastic [Green Matters]

Source: https://www.coolbusinessideas.com/

By Min Tang