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Could robotics and the personal touch restore rare reefs?
CategoriesSustainable News

Could robotics and the personal touch restore rare reefs?

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: While coral reefs cover just 0.2 per cent of the seafloor, they support around 25 per cent of marine species and underpin the safety, coastal protection, well-being, and food and economic security of hundreds of millions of people. They are also disappearing at a rapid rate. Since 2009, around 14 per cent of the world’s corals have disappeared, and the pace is speeding up.

To support coral restoration, CHARM (Coral Husbandry Automated Raceway Machine) has created an aquaculture robot that cleans, feeds, and monitors coral grown in an industrial aquarium. The idea is to grow the coral in a controlled environment and then place it in the wild to help restore reefs. The system uses a robotic arm connected to artificial intelligence (AI) software to monitor, clean, and feed the coral.

The company has also developed a product, called Coral Charm, that helps connect individuals to the coral. When a customer buys a Coral Charm, their name and an image are engraved onto two identical coral plugs (a small, stationary platform that the coral is fixed to). One plug has a coral placed on it and grows inside the CHARM aquarium. The other plug is sent to the customer, along with a QR code.

The QR code sends Coral Charm owners to a dedicated page where they can view the growth of the coral and includes a button they can press to feed it. When the coral is moved to the ocean, users receive the GPS coordinates of the location.

The concern over the state of the world’s coral has prompted a number of recent innovations, including the use of turmeric to protect the reefs and customer-built clay reefs.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

Digital reefs for protecting vulnerable coasts
CategoriesSustainable News

Digital reefs for protecting vulnerable coasts

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Rising demand for leisure trips is fuelling a rapid growth in global coastal and maritime tourism, with a market size worth more than $2.9 trillion (around €2.7 trillion). Many of these coastal destinations rely on reefs to protect wildlife, beaches, and communities from erosion and severe climate events. But the world’s reefs are in danger – around 14 per cent of the world’s coral was lost between 2009 and 2020.

CCell is working to heal damaged reefs, with artificial reefs powered by renewable energy that allow corals, bivalves, and other organisms to thrive. The company’s reefs use a steel frame and calcareous rock is grown around this, acting as a substrate for plants and coral to attach. Units are constructed in sections and transported to reefs that need repair.

Once in place, a safe low-voltage current is passed between a small metal anode and the steel structure. At the anode, oxygen is produced, nourishing marine life. On the main steel structure, which acts as the cathode, the pH rises and prompts the precipitation of dissolved minerals in seawater. The result is a calcareous rock, mainly Aragonite and Brucite, that fills in missing reef sections. The electrolysis is powered using energy from the waves.

CCell’s innovation relies on a digital management system – CCell Sense – allowing power output to be optimised and renewable energy to be distributed carefully across a structure.

Research and development of CCell’s concept was funded using £2 million (around €2.3 million) in government, non-equity funding last year. In 2022, the company also launched various pilot projects to prove the viability of its solution, including in Yucatan, Mexico.

Saving the world’s coral reefs is the subject of a wide range of recent innovations, from using natural antioxidants to stop coral bleaching to 3D-printed reefs made from cremated remains.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

A modular system of 3D-printed bricks for restoring reefs
CategoriesSustainable News

A modular system of 3D-printed bricks for restoring reefs

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Less than 45 per cent of original global reefs remain, and scientists predict that by 2070, they could disappear altogether. Reefs are declining at twice the pace of rainforests and stopping the damage requires swift, focused actions at sites around the world. One company, Swiss-based Rrreefs, creates bespoke coral reef replacements that provide multiple environmental benefits. The company’s goal is to revive one per cent of coastal coral reefs by 2033. 

Video source Rrreefs

Using pure clay, the company 3D prints reef bricks that are customised to best suit the nearest shoreline and local environment. By understanding water flows and marine topography, the company builds structures that provide microenvironments for thousands of animals and plants to thrive. Protecting shores from erosion improves the growing environments for underwater forests of mangroves and seagrass, both of which are crucial to the capture of carbon dioxide. And a single cubic metre of the reef blocks provides a new home to more than 20,000 tiny animals, 20 corals, 60 fish, and more.  

The surface of the bricks is designed specifically to support a variety of coral larvae contributing to the genetic diversity of the new reef. The natural clay material contains no artificial ingredients or chemicals, making it a healthy choice that contributes no new pollution to the world’s oceans.  

Using 3D printing allows for modular production and complete customisation of height, width, and length of the overall reef structure. The process also allows for local manufacturing, which further reduces the carbon footprint of each reef.  

The innovations seeking to help stop the irreversible destruction of the world’s coral reefs are many and varied. Recent ones spotted by Springwise include a global cat food brand supporting new reefs and a company making leather out of an invasive fish that threatens reef health.

Written By: Keely Khoury

Reference

Protecting Florida’s coral reefs by making leather out of lionfish
CategoriesSustainable News

Protecting Florida’s coral reefs by making leather out of lionfish

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Inversa, a sustainable Florida-based fashion brand, has announced a new type of sustainable leather with a unique selling point. The exotic leather is made from lionfish, a species that is highly invasive. Native to the tropical waters of the Indian and South Pacific Oceans, lionfish were first detected in US waters in the 1980s, potentially as a result of aquarium releases. The increasing presence of the highly predatory fish in Florida’s Atlantic waters is believed to be having a significant impact on the health of coral reefs and the ecosystems they support.

The idea of using the fish for leather was inspired by indigenous practices, and the goal of the initiative is to reduce the pressure on marine ecosystems while also providing an alternative to cow leather – a material criticised by many on ethical and environmental grounds.

Inversa’s leather is extremely versatile and flexible. It can be used in a variety of applications, from fashion to furniture. The company is partnering with a number of brands, including Italian footwear brand P448 and Teton Leather, who will produce accessories using the lionfish leather.

In addition to helping the environment by removing a damaging invader, Inversa’s innovative tanning process for the leather has a very small footprint using just 200 millilitres of water per skin.

The startup was recently a finalist for the Ocean Resilience Innovation Challenge grant by the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA).

Springwise has spotted numerous sustainable leather innovations including the world’s first cell cultivated leather, leather made from grape skins, and plastic-free leather made from hemp.

Written By: Katrina Lane

14th July 2022

Website: inversaleathers.com

Contact: inversaleathers.com/contact-us

Reference

3D-printed aquatic reefs made from cremated remains
CategoriesSustainable News

3D-printed aquatic reefs made from cremated remains

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: What if, instead of scattering your loved ones’ ashes into the ocean, you could give them a more permanent resting place that would also help regenerate marine ecosystems?

This is the idea behind Resting Reefs, a system of 3D-printed artificial reefs designed to be made from cremated remains. The project was developed by Louise Lenborg Skajem and Aura Elena Murillo Pérez, graduates of the Royal College of Art in London.

The Reefs are designed to provide a habitat for marine life, helping to restore biodiversity in areas where natural coral reefs have been destroyed. According to the developers, each reef can support up to 16 different species of marine life.

To test their design, the team used animal bones and pulverized oyster shells—in place of human remains—to make a composite that may be 3D-printed into stippled mounds. The mounds resemble the form and natural growth pattern of stromatolite reefs, which are made up of microorganisms like blue-green algae.

Forming cremated ashes into solid reef mounds also provides surviving family members with a permanent place to pay respects to their loved ones.

The reefs are intended to be placed in shallow waters near the shore – where they can provide a home for small fish and other creatures. Eventually, the developers hope to create a version of the reef that can be used in deeper waters.

The Reefs are designed to provide a habitat for marine life, helping to restore biodiversity in areas where natural coral reefs have been destroyed. According to the developers, each reef can support up to 16 different species of marine life.

Other reef-related innovations spotted by Springwise include underwater ‘coral cities’ that revive marine life, ‘coral IVF’ used to re-populate damaged reefs, and bacteria that protect reefs from heat stress.

Written By: Katrina Lane

21st April 2022

Website: restingreef.co.uk

Contact: restingreef.co.uk/contact

Reference