Following on from the Contamination & Geotech Expo, AZoCleantech speaks with Barnaby Hayward from P&D Marine Services about his involvement in the clean technology sector and the company’s innovative water management solution - the Jellyfishbot.
Please could you introduce yourself and your role at P&D Marine Services?
My name is Barnaby Hayward, and I work in the Technical Sales & Business Development department for P&D Marine Services, part of the P&D Group.
How did you become involved with this role?
I have over 28 years of experience working in the boating/marine industry. My passion for boats and being by the water started in the United States, where I lived there for 16 years. During my time in the United States, I began sailing in my free time whilst working for a marine environmental company.
After several years of experience as a boat operator and crew on a large oil spill response vessel, I became a licensed USCG boat captain, which allowed me to carry out towing and salvage operations along the East coast.
Image Credit: P&D Marine Services
Following this, I worked for a large land-based boat dealership supporting both the sales and service departments. Being land-based provided its challenges, especially with transportation and yard movements, so various methods were used, including cranes, trailers, cradles, etc.
When I returned to the UK, I started working as a marina manager at a coastal marina in the North West, which had large workshops, moorings, storage ashore, etc. This role grew over my 13 years of service, and I became a Certified Marina Manager (CMM), successfully managed six marinas, and then became a regional Operations Manager for 9 locations.
I am pleased to combine all this experience into my existing role with P&D Marine Services Ltd. When discussing solutions with a client, I understand the needs/challenges of marina operators in both the coastal and inland sectors, specializing in commercial and recreational applications.
What are some of the main goals and aims of P&D Marine Services as a company?
With over fifty years of experience in and around Boatyards, P&D Marine Services offers a solution for any project within a boatyard, marina, or watercourse environment. If you need to move it, store it, lift it, we have a solution. Our team is highly experienced and qualified to understand the workings of a busy boatyard, marina, or harbor. This is why P&D Marine Services are the go-to people when customers need a solution for their projects.
With a wealth of experience and knowledge, P&D Marine Services offers a turnkey solution that will meet any exact requirements, delivering the best solutions and carefully selecting the right high-quality products, combined with the very best services.
P&D Marine Services provides solutions delivered by staff with extensive experience working in the industry, both afloat and ashore. We are passionate about helping companies and individuals to develop their plans both on and off the water through our full range of products and services.
In a climate-conscious society that is focused on an ecological transition, how important is it to monitor the quality of our waters?
Our waterways serve as an excellent touchstone for how well we are treating our planet.
The impact of poor management of plastic waste on land directly affects the levels of microplastics and hydrocarbons in our oceans.
Our oceans and waterways support incredibly vast and diverse biospheres and are a habitat that not only supports an incredible array of wildlife but actively helps to alleviate the effects of climate change.
Our oceans are an incredibly powerful carbon sink. Absorbing a quarter of the carbon dioxide released since fossil fuels entered widespread use, it has also trapped an estimated 90% of the excess heat created by climate warming gases.
This has come at a cost, however. The level of acidity in our oceans has increased, lowering oxygen levels and changing current patterns that threaten marine habitats and the ocean’s ability to support life on Earth. Oceans are not just one of the areas affected by climate change; they are a crucial key to the solution.
Billions of tons of pollution enter our water every year. Can you provide an overview of what P&D Marine Services’ Jellyfishbot is and how it can be used as a solution to help monitor water quality?
Jellyfishbot is a future-proof way to tackle the issue of water-based waste management.
By removing risk to workers and wildlife, large-scale processes can be automated and carried out by one or two trained operatives to oversee any clean-up activity. This not only reduces the labor and time required of a waste management team but also increases the effectiveness of a cleaning operation.
Image Credit: P&D Marine Services
By equipping multiple Jellyfishbots with a variety of cleaning apparatus, such as catch-nets and oil skimmers, companies can vastly increase the types of operations that can be completed. Jellyfishbot is able to assess marine salinity levels and conduct bathymetric surveys, which means it has a vast range of applications beyond its clean-up capabilities.
What are some of the key design features of the Jellyfishbot that enable it to search out and identify what is classed as ‘sea trash’?
Jellyfishbot is equipped with sensors that allow it to operate autonomously while dodging obstacles, collecting waste, and avoiding any hazards within the water.
Image Credit: P&D Marine Services
If problem areas require more careful cleaning or navigation around smaller obstacles, Jellyfishbot’s remote-control function allows careful, managed cleaning of an area.
In comparison to conventional methods of water quality monitoring, how does the Jellyfishbot compare? In your opinion, what makes Jellyfishbot a standout technology?
The first thing that sets Jellyfishbot apart from other clean-up devices is its ease of use. Other devices that filter out or remove plastic from waterways are static and rely on being placed in problem areas to tackle waste. Jellyfishbot’s remote control function provides an easy way to clean difficult or dangerous bodies of water without any risk to workers or wildlife.
Jellyfishbot can operate autonomously. Operators program in coordinates for a set cleaning area, and Jellyfishbot takes care of the rest. Whereas other static devices are only able to clean larger plastic waste and debris, Jellyfishbot is able to remove oil, microplastics, and other difficult substances easily.
Image Credit: P&D Marine Services
Its regular use prevents large-scale build-ups of waste and the problems that come along with such pollution. Chemical changes within the marine ecosystem, like an increase in hydrocarbons, can lead to biological shifts, such as algal blooms, which can have massive consequences for food chains and biodiversity.
One huge advantage of Jellyfishbot is its compact size. It can be easily operated and transported by one person in the back of a car. This is a problem for other, similar waste removal drones, whose unwieldy size makes them difficult to operate in smaller areas.
Jellyfishbot’s small size and low weight of 20 kg mean it is the perfect choice for cleaning hard-to-reach areas that other devices simply cannot manage. Jellyfishbot can also be equipped with sonar equipment, which enables the device to perform Bathymetric Surveys down to a depth of 10 meters.
What industries would benefit from this novel device and why? Who is your main target audience, and why was it important to offer a ‘service option’ for the Jellyfishbot?
Jellyfishbot has a broad range of applications for anyone working with or around waterways. In addition to being perfect for the marine sector, where it can be utilized to clean up problem areas and maintain the cleanliness of any waterway, it can also be deployed to operate on all calm bodies of water, meaning that it has hugely practical applications depending on where it is deployed.
Jellyfishbot is perfect for maintaining high-traffic areas such as locks and canal channels, as well as any private or commercial bodies of water in need of maintenance. Jellyfishbot can provide a huge amount of assistance to companies who have water spaces to maintain without the necessary tools or crew to look after them.
There is also huge potential for Jellyfishbot to be applied to the petrochemical and waste management industries, as the design of the specialized netting is able to effortlessly sift and skim microplastics and oil from water surfaces. This removes any level of human risk from the ordinarily difficult and costly endeavors of clean-up and allows hazardous materials to be removed from waterways safely.
Our fully serviced option provides users with a simple and cost-effective means of keeping their waterways clear of all pollution. Our operator will deploy the Jellyfishbot into the water and clean the area/areas identified and can also carry out a microplastic clean to remove the most harmful pollutants in the water to wildlife. Each visit will last four hours but can be extended if the pollution is greater and requires additional time.
Please can you provide an overview of your partnership with IADYS – the start-up company behind the Jellyfishbot?
Jellyfishbot was originally developed by Interactive Autonomous Dynamic Systems (IADYS) in France.
IADYS CEO and Jellyfishbot creator Nicolas Carlési designed the device after diving in the Mediterranean, where he noticed the proliferation of plastic waste making its way into our oceans. He decided to use his expertise in robotics to design a device that is perfectly adapted to safely cleaning waterways.
Jellyfishbot started out its life as a remote-controlled litter collector but has now developed into a satellite-guided, completely autonomous machine that can detect moving and static objects above and below the water.
These innovations lead to the development of Jellyfishbot’s bathymetric function, which is able to map and plot the depth of water. It also gives readings regarding water temperature and salinity on the controller interface. There is currently a charging dock and water sample collection system in development.
As the exclusive distributor for Jellyfishbot in the UK, we are excited to be bringing this incredible innovation to the UK’s inland waterways. With more than 4,700 miles of rivers and canals that lead directly to our oceans, the UK is in dire need of initiatives to tackle the rising tides of plastic waste in our waterways.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.com/SAKhanPhotography
According to figures from Greenpeace, areas of the River Mersey are more polluted than the infamous ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch.’ 1 We must take action against these problems before it is too late to restore harmony within the oceanic biosphere.
Click here to find out more about P&D Marine Services' water management solution - the Jellyfishbot.
About Barnaby Hayward
Barnaby Hayward works in the Technical Sales & Business Development department for P&D Marine Services, part of the P&D Group. He has over 28 years of experience working in the boating/marine industry.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily represent the views of AZoM.com Limited (T/A) AZoNetwork, the owner and operator of this website. This disclaimer forms part of the Terms and Conditions of use of this website.