The last of our 2025 ‘I’ve got an Idea’ Fund awards goes to sea kayaker, Roy Beal, founder of Clean Jurassic Coast CIC, a not-for-profit run by volunteers who work to remove plastic and other litter from beaches.

Based on his love of the ocean and mission to remove plastic, Roy’s idea is to develop a microplastic beach cleaning device using static electricity and electromagnetic fields.  Roy explains where his thinking comes from:-

“Technology exists to remove microplastics from water using static electricity, but there does not appear to be an application to remove these harmful plastics once they have washed ashore.

Microplastics are small plastics less then 5mm in size. These can be fragments from broken plastic, polystyrene pieces, nurdles or bio-beads. Nurdles are plastic pellets roughly the size of a lentil, and are used in the production of plastic goods. Bio-beads are a similar size, with a rough surface, and are used in water treatment. Both nurdles and bio-beads often end up in the environment, usually due to industry spillages.

All microplastics are harmful to wildlife, especially nurdles and bio-beads as they look like food. Fish, birds and animals eat them, but are unable to digest them. Bio-beads are especially harmful as they are used to clean sewage water and contain a lot of toxins.

I have been experimenting with ways to collect these plastics using static electricity and electromagnetic fields and have proved the concept, but need financial assistance to go further with the intention to build a portable machine that can be used to clear spills from beaches.

When nurdles wash ashore, they soon get mixed with seaweed and other organics making it difficult to collect them. Seaweed contains important nutrients for any given ecosystem and should not be removed. We want to create a way to remove microplastics from the shore, leaving the important organic material behind.

My idea is to create a machine that will use suction to remove material from the beach, separate the plastics using a mixture of vibration and electricity, collecting the plastic before returning the organic material to the beach.”

Our award will enable Roy to acquire the components he needs to build a prototype for testing in a real environment. We wish him well in this intriguing and potentially significant venture tackling the ever worsening problem of microplastics on our beaches.