Interceptor 007 Faces the First Rain Event in LA (& stops 35,000 lbs of waste) | The Ocean Cleanup

We're here with the 007 Interceptor to pilot it for two years. LA County will be operating and maintaining it two storm seasons to see how much trash we can capture. We do realize that the majority of the trash that's flowing through Bayona Creek is during storm seasons, right? You know, residents see it, we see it on the beaches, so while it will be in place throughout the rest of the two-year pilot, the idea is that it will serve as an educational campaign, right? It's a bit hard to miss out here, so hopefully these sleek designs will attract people here. We have wonderful educational signage posted around the area that'll inform folks that trash not only, you know, ends up on the beach, but that it does originate from somewhere, so that they're mindful of where they're putting their trash, they can assist with other beach cleanup efforts, other trash cleanup efforts. We have some wonderful groups in the area that they can First priority is to make sure that the second boom is deployed ready for the first flush, right? It's very difficult to predict weather anyway, and to make sure that we do it with enough time that we definitely capture everything, that's the first challenge. Between 5 and 10, we should get 0.01, 11 to 4, 0.05, 5 to 10, 0.14 inches, 11 to 4 a.m. on Tuesday, 0.26 inches, from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 0.23 inches, and Tuesday again from 10 a.m. to about 3 p.m., no, like I said, it's, this is great, this is really good, and I said, I know it's, it's, it's each weekend we'll be picking up more, so it's fantastic, really excited. Right now, the interceptor is picking up the trash that is flowing out of Bologna Creek, so that it's going to remove the trash before it gets to our Pacific Ocean. Well, it looks like you guys are doing a great job. Looks like it's cleaning up what normally is a polluted Bologna Creek after a major storm, and as a person who runs on the beach for many, many years, it's working. I mean, I can see that the beach going southwest is much cleaner. I see all the debris that's coming down, and it's obviously gathering it all up, and so I'm stoked that as a person that's out here and also as a pseudo-environmentalist to see this happening for us. It's great. From what I heard, it's full inside, and they're going to empty it, and then this can have its chance to go in and not go in the ocean. We're so lucky to have it here. It's just a big deal. It really is a big deal. We just experienced first flush. You know, you get that kind of, that surge of trash that's up against the boom, and it literally just kind of piles itself up onto the boom. It definitely operated as designed. It's interesting to see the trash characteristics inside the bins. If you figure this thing holds 12,000 pounds in one rain event, I mean, that's pretty good in my opinion. It's amazing, man. This is really cool. I really, I don't know if I had my doubts, but I didn't want to celebrate too early when we're here. Was that a week ago or two weeks ago for the unveiling of this thing? But now just seeing it here and working, and that's great. It's really cool. I think, I don't know if I was a naysayer for this technology, but I definitely wasn't a ringleader, or I wasn't banging the drum to get this thing in here. But now that it's here, I'm really glad it's here. It's working really well. This is awesome. This is awesome, and California doing its thing, and you know, this is only one of the little things that could make a big difference if everybody do their part. So I appreciate that, and I'm going to keep doing my part and encourage people to not do this, because this is horrible. And I'm not a TV person by no means, but you know, I'm just saying exactly what I feel, what I see. So I walk on the beach regularly. I'm a regular jogger, and you can see the volume of waste here, and clearly this is not perfect. There's still some waste showing up on the beach, but it's the first and most drastic attempt that I've seen of trying to make a difference. And so for sure it needs some refinement, it needs some investment, it needs support, but clearly this is a step in the right direction. So it's encouraging, and it makes me proud to see someone trying to do something to improve the environment. And the program, you can tell it's not perfect. You know, the gate here doesn't close up to the edge, but a large percentage is captured, and so it proves that it is possible. It's worth trying. It's worth putting an investment towards it, because clearly there is an avenue where this can be solved to some extent. Even if today, as it is, it's not absolutely perfect. As the tide rises and falls, that gap between the levee and the boom, it increases and decreases. So when the barrier has increased, it was allowing some leakage to go by on that left side. But we had some old booms up by Lincoln, so it was nice to be able to repurpose those booms. We kind of connected that to the end of the barrier to fill in that gap, and then we kind of ran the boom parallel with the levee going upstream and secured it. So looking out there this morning, it looked pretty good. You know what I mean? It did its job, what I expected it to do, and the trash is staying where it needs to be now. So it's nice. It's an opportunity to kind of inform the public, you know, that the Interceptor is here, it's doing a great job, but also what our department does. So yeah, it's actually serving to everything that it's built up to be. It's been great. We thought we were probably going to get six loads all year, and we're working on our third load already on the first rain event. So that's quite incredible. When you actually see all that trash together, that huge patch, and you think, wow, that's what was on our beaches, that's what all the wildlife was playing in. It's crazy. I mean, I can't believe we figured out something that can actually help this thing. We're just so excited. Hard to describe, hard to put into words, because we've seen this creek just overflow with trash. It's the main source of pollution in Santa Monica Bay. And to see that, all the photos being captured here is, I guess, beautiful is the only word I can think, man. It is a bit strange to use, to use, it's almost like a euphemism to use beautiful to describe this scene. But I, you know, living in this bay my whole life and knowing where this trash could be along the, you know, the last 26 miles of this bay, of the beach, and instead of just being captured here, I mean, it's just a, it's a success story. Oh man, I'm so glad I came out this morning. Honestly, it's fantastic. I mean, the entire community is so excited to have clean beaches, to have wildlife not be interfered with. You know, there's a few people that are kind of nimby about it, but to be honest, most of the people here are just so excited, so excited for this. So I hope that in the future, this becomes something that is turned into our, our system of waste and refuse, and that it's something that is scaled and put into production. This being a pilot project, and looking at the success we're looking at today, and just moving forward and adjusting and gosh, in 10 years, man, if we keep this up, and with the technology as it is now, and just making our adjustments as we move forward, I mean, we could honestly remove Bayona Creek as a major contributor of floatable trash to Santa Monica Bay. That'd be huge. That'd be so huge, man.