SAN DIEGO — A one-of-a-kind boat designed in San Diego is looking to make the ocean a cleaner place and revolutionize how oil spills are cleaned up.
Ben Gurfinkel is a Holocaust survivor and 87-years-old. He developed the boat and EcoSave Tech during his retirement years.
"With trial and error and napkin design I was able to build this vessel," he said.
His boat was used after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He says the boat can clean two square miles of oil spill in just 10 hours.
Water is pulled up on a belt on the boat and then pushed through different tanks. Particle separation filters oil from the water. The oil is kept on the vessel and the clean water goes back into the sea. No hazardous waste is created, unlike typical oil spill cleanups.
"A lot of times they will just put absorbent pads onto the oil spill to absorb it like a big paper towel but those are already a hazardous material before you even drop them in the water," said Joe Dolin, the president of EcoSave Tech.
Lab testing has proven the boat successfully removes oil pollutants and even sewage particles. Gurfinkel believes it could help the Tijuana River sewage crisis that has shut down San Diego beaches near the border.
"We barricade 10 feet deep because human waste floats. We position 10 to 15 boats like this then this summer we could have a clean ocean," he said.
He's hopeful his technology will catch on and help make the planet a cleaner, safer place.
"If God gives me years to perfect it then I am here to do that," he said.
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