Hugo and Anna greeted each, pleased that at least the TUNA nations had arrived. The group made their way out onto the patio of the house and each took a seat. "Now I'd like to officially welcome each of you to Bakkermaya and to thank Duchess Anna for making Wellow avaliable for us to use as our venue. This is a conference that while my name is on the invite it was Anna who largely set the ball in motion. I'm from the mainland province and as such the matters of the oceans are not a daily concern as they often are for those of you who live in the middle of the Alucard. I am however well aware of the issues that this conference seek to tackle. As such I think it best if I turn things over to Anna to once more get the ball rolling."
Anna had been busying herself removing the ceremonial breastplate and was now sat in just the dress uniform that came along with being Lead Sword of Bakkermaya. As Hugo began to speak she gave a discreet nod to some of her staff who disappeared off towards the house. Anna began to speak, "The Alucard is an ocean we call home in one way or another and is a vital part of many of our economies. Its home to many unique species and as such if we do not begin taking better care of it then it is a resource that will be lost to us." As on cue the staff reappared carrying plastic bags which they placed in the centre of the table spilling the contents everywhere. "As we talk today about what we hope to achieve I hope you'll remember this. All this plastic you see before you came from the stomach of a beached sperm whale that washed up on Wellow a week ago." There was a rather unpleasant ouder in the air. "The whale's stomach was found to contain 115 plastic cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, two flip-flops, a nylon sack and more than 1,000 other assorted pieces of plastic. All of which you can now see before you. I'm sure we all agree they have no purpose being inside a whale. This is just a small part of what exists floating around out there in the Alucard. Now it is my hope that we can start to tidy this up. This is however only the beginning of the proposals. Now I'd like you all to listen to this gentleman, let me introduce Adrian Martinson."
A man who looked in his early 30's stood up and placed a notepad in front of him. "Hello, I'm Adrian, I have spent the last few years working on this concept that I hope you will support. We plan to build a fleet of floating plastic concentrators, each will be 600 meters long and feature solar panels which will power a series of bouys on the device. Each bouy will have an anti-collison light and a satellite transponder allowing them to be tracked. It will float along moved by a combination of the waves, wind and currents. As it moves naturally it will follow a similar pattern through the Alucard as the plastic however as the plastic is only moved by the current generally the catcher will move faster. Suspended beneath the catcher is a 3 meter deep skirt which will help move much of the less bouyant plastic which sits below the surface, it will however also create a downcurrent which will ensure marine life can escape under. The movement of the ocean will create a natural U shape to the catcher and cameras and monitors attached to it will allow us to monitor its progress. Once the catcher has concentrated a vast array of plastic we move a ship in, scoop up the plastic that has accumulated and then move it to shore to be recycled. It's a simple idea but estimates are that we could remove 50% of the plastic in the ocean within 5 years. What we need however is more than the prototype and that means money. For this to work we'd ideally need ten of these dotted around the Alucard in different starting points. Each one will cost in the region of $10million to build and deploy, we ideally also need a further $10 million to build a monitoring facility and provide a ship to extract the gathered plastic. We would also require nations willing and able to process the recovered plastic. In total we are looking at some $110million to get this project started. However globally this plastic issue is thought to cost in terms of damaged shipping, damage to marine life, tourism etc around $13billion annually. What I present therefore is a bargain. I'd be happy to answer any questions or comments."
