Maintaining clean waterways is a priority for the City of Miami Beach. The city has a waterway maintenance contractor who services the city’s waterways three times a week removing litter and large plant debris. Litter in the waterways harms marine wildlife, creates unpleasant conditions for recreation, and is an aesthetic concern for residents and visitors. This problem is an issue for many coastal communities and with no one-size-fits-all solution.

Marine Trash Skimmers (MTS) is a product designed to keep waterways clean by skimming trash from the surface of waterways. The most commonly collected items by this device include styrofoam, glass bottles, cans and containers, plastic bags and wrappers, cardboard, floating organic material, fishing products, cigarettes, and oil (if an oil pad is included). The MTS can clean about 300 gallons of water a minute for 24 hours every day which is the equivalent to about 20 swimming pools of water. The unit uses about 25 Kwh/day which translates to approximately $2/day in energy costs. The unit cost of the MTS is approximately $12,000 with a warranty provided on the molded parts (10 yr), water pump (2yr), and control panel (3yr). The unit is 6’ wide x 4’ deep x 18” freeboard which gives it a 24 square foot area. All of the trash is retained within the footprint of the MTS. Another benefit of the MTS is that it aerates the water near the unit via the circulating pump.  

The MTS unit requires electricity and daily maintenance. The typical application of this product is in marinas. The City reached out to five different marinas to find out what kind of experiences they had with MTS. Three of the marinas were in California, one was in Texas, and one in Hawaii. The response from the marina operators was primarily positive. They all stated that MTS are very effective at removing floating debris and organic material from the waterways. Some of the marinas have even installed more units due to their effectiveness. The MTS removed a varying amount of debris from each marina ranging from 10 to 50 gallons per day.

One point that all the marina operators stressed was the maintenance the MTS requires. These are not units that can run for extended periods of time without an operator present. Most of the marinas clean out their units once per day. This requires an operator to scoop out any accumulated debris from the bin to prevent any clogging of the unit. Along with daily maintenance, every three to six months the unit needs to be removed from the water to be thoroughly cleaned from any biological organisms that have grown on the unit. This process requires a crane to remove the unit from the water and place it on land to be cleaned with a pressure washer which takes about two hours per unit. The unit can also be towed to a boat ramp to be removed.