The Great Barrier Reef Could Be Rescued By Geotube Technology

Quite possibly you are aware that the Australian government agreed to a significant expansion of the port of Abbot Point, which will be developed into the most significant coal port on earth. This expansion will result in the removal of more than one hundred million cubic feet of sludge from the sea that is going to be dumped near or in the World Heritage area of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Just to give you a hunch of what this amounts to: if we would dump this load of dredged substance on land, the mountain of waste would be higher than the Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

Dumping the waste in the vicinity of the Great Barrier Reef will definitely harm Australia’s best known tourist attraction, the world-famous region brings in over $5.7 billion yearly. Dumping this enormous burden of mud in this spectacular national marine region could jeopardize this exceptional area’s World Heritage listing.

However, there is a far better option to remove the sludge. One of the best ways to get rid of the waste is applying revolutionary dewatering methods such as the geotube-container-technique invented by the Dutch corporation TenCate, which will very effectively take care of the waste materials. This ground-breaking geotube system works by using tubular-shaped containers manufactured from geotextiles that let water seep through, and which are all over the world used as dewatering solutions for solid waste coming from ports, lagoons, canals and rivers.

The technique is reasonably simple: the waste material is put into the Geotube containers, and environmentally friendly polymers are mixed with the waste. The non-fluid materials will bind together and the water can seep out of the geotubes. The solid waste is safely stored in the geotube containers, that can be easily removed and shipped for removal or further treatment methods.

This innovative geotube technology is fairly modern and maybe still not commonly recognised, but it has been applied at more than two thousand locations around the world. In fact, it is astonishing that not one person talked about this revolutionary alternative which is the ideal solution to avoid getting rid of the waste in the waters surrounding the Great Barrier Reef. Let’s tell others about this ecologically risk-free option and protect the Great Barrier Reef from destruction. Please share this wonderful infographic and let us try to save this amazing region.