A Sweeping Success!

As the MV Liffey Sweeper begins cleaning up our capital’s main river system, Jimmy Murray, Director of the Irish Nautical Trust, explains the importance of the River Liffey Cleaning Project.

Dublin recently got a new addition to its nautical fleet as the Liffey Sweeper made her maiden voyage along the River Liffey as part of a pilot project which is setting out to clean the capital’s main natural waterway.

The Liffey Sweeper is part of the River Liffey Cleaning Project, the brainchild of Jimmy Murray, Director of the Irish Nautical Trust, who has ambitious plans to remove all debris from the Liffey, the Dodder and the Tolka estuary.

“This is the first project of its kind to tackle environmental waste,” explains Jimmy. “It’s an ecological and environmental development research project, which has been designed over the last two years to help prevent the accumulation of all non-natural debris and to stop it getting into the sea and the biosphere, where it affects marine wildlife.

“Essentially, we want to remove all the floating debris that is in the River Liffey, the River Dodder and the River Tolka, and around the Port area, which is generally carried by nature, via a combination of the flowing tides and the wind,” Jimmy explains. “Wind direction will dictate where the debris goes, the tide will dictate where the debris flows, and if debris misses the tide going out, it subsequently gets lodged in rocks, marinas, behind boats etc.

“The tide never stops,” Jimmy smiles. “We call it the river that never sleeps. So every six hours, the tide changes and even while we are asleep, whatever is coming down the Liffey will float down and out to sea or else get caught up around port berths, slipways, steps and other areas where it can get trapped.”

This debris is a combination of natural materials (trees, branches, leaves etc.) and man-made (plastic bottles, cans, boxes, plastic bags, neutral buoyancy plastic etc), and some of the larger materials can create huge problems for shipping traffic. “Large debris in the water can be very dangerous and often cannot be seen. We are hopefully going to prevent that from occurring,” Jimmy explains.

MV Liffey Sweeper

The first step in the project was the purchase of the Liffey Sweeper, following a successful application to the Dublin Waste to Energy Community Gain Projects Grant Scheme, which saw the Trust granted €180,000 to purchase the former environmental vessel from the UK.

The MV Liffey Sweeper’s role will be to sweep from the upper part of the River Liffey at Butt Bridge to the mouth of the River and Clontarf area, including the basins and all the shipping berths within Dublin Port. Using its large front cage and additional side cages, it will collect both floating and neutral buoyancy debris.

“The Liffey Sweeper has a deep cage and she will be able to catch a whole range of material from the water, including plastic on the surface and plastic just below the surface,” explains Jimmy.

A number of improvements and design infrastructural changes were made and installed on board the vessel to make it more adaptable to work on the River Liffey in removing floating debris from the water using its newly installed front-loading cage.

Once the materials are lifted from the water, they will be separated and sorted into designated recycling bins and the balance of the assorted materials will be disposed of into a large skip, which will then be removed by a licenced contractor to be sent for treatment before disposal at Covanta Waste to Energy Treatment Plant.

Pilot Project

Initially, the Liffey Sweeper will operate for four days every week as part of its pilot project, which will clean the Liffey, the Dodder, the Clontarf seafront and the Tolka Estuary. “During this pilot project, we will identify the type and quantity of debris that is accumulating, and then we will develop a programme to clean up the river and port areas of debris going forward, which may involve other vessels as well as the Liffey Sweeper, depending on how much debris is in the water,” Jimmy reveals.

“Our pilot project is about gathering enough data on

the debris in the water to put together a programme to prevent any debris entering the Dublin Bay Biosphere. We will expand the pilot progamme as needed and put the mechanisms in place to do that.”

The River Liffey Cleaning Project also proposes to install a network of environmental debris booms, specifically designed to suit the tidal range, height and speed in the locations where they will be installed along the Liffey and around the Dublin Bay area. These booms will collect debris during ebbing and flooding tides 24 hours a day seven days a week, all year-round, preventing debris heading out to sea.

“We are planning to install a series of booms along the Liffey as a delayed collection mechanism,” Jimmy explains. “Essentially, the boom will hold debris there until it can be collected by the Liffey Sweeper or any other vessels employed to clean up the waterways.”

Achieving the project’s environmental goals will involve collaboration between the Irish Nautical Trust, Dublin Port Company, Dublin Waste to Energy/Covanta, and Dublin City Council, who are responsible for the Dublin Bay Biosphere.

Creating local employment

Eventually, it is hoped the river cleaning will employ a number of people from the areas adjacent to the port to clean up the waterways. This ties in perfectly with The Irish Nautical Trust’s mission to create a marine training apprenticeship platform using marine craft and professional providers to train and certify young people in maritime skills so they can reach the level of competency required to operate marine craft in this particular environment for long-term sustainable employment.

The recent rebirth of the Liffey Ferry was the first marine training vessel managed by the Irish Nautical Trust.

Jimmy explains that this goal is hugely important in terms of “creating local employment, education, training and certification for young people who will be the future custodians to maintain and protect our river environment and structures along the River Liffey”.

There is still a lot of work to be done over the coming months to achieve the ideal control measures needed to prevent aquatic debris entering the Biosphere, according to Jimmy.

“This project is badly needed,” Jimmy concludes. “The Liffey is an extension of the streets; a lot of the waste that is on the city’s streets ends up in the river, whether

it is thrown in or blown in by nature, and being carried out to sea. This project is a win for the environment, the beaches, the wildlife and the local communities, in terms of cleaning them up and hopefully creating employment.”