Containing a huge build-up of plastic debris ranging from large fishing nets to flake-sized microplastics, it has been one of the main targets for The Ocean Cleanup team.

"If we are continuously cleaning up inside those hotspots, we can of course be a lot more effective in our clean-up operation."

As Formic grows, it is creating a library of automation solutions that can do everyday tasks, Ilkhechi explains, “so that even as we customize solutions, we don’t have to continuously reinvent the wheel.” At the same time, Formic is creating a platform where the company purchases hardware in bulk, which solves supply chain issues and reduces the cost and access to hardware for its customers and for other sub-component and system integrators that sit between Formic and the hardware, he says. “As Formic builds its knowledge and hardware base, it will be able to lower subscription costs and continue to democratize automation for U.S. manufacturers.”

Misa Ilkhechi, co-founder and vice president of product and partnerships at Formic, says, “Formic owns, programs, installs and maintains robotic systems from vendors like FANUC, Universal Robots and Yaskawa Motoman at its own cost, assuming the financial risk for customers…Put simply, if any of our systems don’t work or fail to hit the agreed-upon productivity metrics, we don’t get paid, so we’re literally invested in keeping them running well.”

"The rivers are really the arteries that carry trash from land to sea," Boyan said. "So when it rains, plastic washes from streets into creeks, into rivers, and then ultimately to the ocean."

The workplace is not only safer, but employee satisfaction is up and there is a reduction in employee turnover. Kleitsch-Killam says ICON’s corporate management team tries to frame the use of automation as a “productivity enhancer” rather than a “person replacer,” but there was initial skepticism from some of their long-time employees. “Once they saw that nobody was getting laid off to ‘make room’ for this automation, however, they recognized how much easier and safer it made their job. Those working on the less-staffed overnight and weekend shifts, in particular, now see much more opportunity to take on skilled roles within the company than before.

As Machine Design’s technical editor, Sharon Spielman produces content for the brand’s focus audience—design and multidisciplinary engineers. Her beat includes 3D printing/CAD; mechanical and motion systems, with an emphasis on pneumatics and linear motion; automation; robotics; and CNC machining.

Several years later, he says he remains sceptical about this - but feels far more positive about targeting rubbish in rivers.

"There's about 1,000 rivers we need to tackle and five ocean garbage patches, [so] the first few years were really about trying to understand the problem."

“While our operators faced persistent minor injuries such as burns, as well as a high risk of more serious injuries, our overnight and weekend shifts were marred by inconsistent staffing levels that led to disruptions.” She says as they grappled with the resulting high worker turnover, inconsistent output, longer lead times and higher prices for end customers, “We knew automation was the answer to both challenges.”

"I truly believe that with these technologies to clean up the legacy pollution in the ocean and to intercept plastic in rivers before it reaches the oceans, we will actually able to to put ourselves out of business in the not-so-distant future," he added.

She says the onsite staff training was an informative six-hour-long, hands-on course. “The cell includes a customized robotic machine operator (a 6-axis articulated FANUC robot arm), which was installed on our largest injection molding press, a 720-ton Nissei FV9100 that is over 20 years old,” she says. “It also includes a vertical conveyor that fully automates the process of loading, unloading and lowering the finished parts into the cooling bath for the final annealing process. This project consists of eight different parts, and programs for each size are set by Formic and maintained with software from Rockwell Automation.”

"We are intercepting plastic in 11 rivers around the world," Boyan said, "but ultimately aim to scale this to all 1,000 heaviest polluting rivers in the world."

The team believes it will have collected 1% of the patch by the end of this year using its current system - but they are scaling up their operations to try to clean up patches faster.

The tech behind these varies according to factors such as width, depth, flow speed and debris type of the river in question - again assessed using AI-powered cameras.

Kleitsch-Killam adds, “We can also monitor our system via a handy app, but Formic is committed to identifying and fixing problems before they even arise.”

The impetus for ICON to explore automation arose when the company was faced with a specific project that required operators to repeatedly retrieve 300°F hot plastic parts and place them in a cooling bath. According to Kleitsch-Killam, the project required that operators stand on their feet for the entire workday to complete the task. “This repetitive manual process led to concerns about both worker safety and operational inefficiencies,” she says.

Prof Richard Lampitt of the National Oceanography Centre told BBC News in 2018 he believed using boats to pull nets and shuttle plastic from ocean garbage patches to ports could have a high carbon cost.

And The Ocean Cleanup hopes that rolling out 10 of these larger systems in the near-future could clean up to 80% of the North Pacific's plastic debris by the end of the decade.

"I cannot think of any way that you can remove these from the natural environment from the ocean without causing massive damage to the food webs, and of course taking an awful lot of energy in order to do it," he said.

Under Formic’s pay-for-productivity RaaS model, ICON pays for the operation of the robots when they are actively deployed. This hourly payment structure avoids a large CapEx spend and still reaps automation benefits.

While this represents just 0.2% of the 100 million kilograms of plastic contained in the world's largest patch of plastic rubbish, he said it was still worth it: "Everything big starts small, right?"

Spielman has more than three decades of experience as a writer and editor for a range of B2B brands, including those that cover machine design; electrical design and manufacturing; interconnection technology; food and beverage manufacturing; process heating and cooling; finishing; and package converting.

Trying to solve the world's ocean plastic pollution problem has been a "long and painful journey" for Dutch entrepreneur Boyan Slat.

Plastic collected by the 800-metre-long (2,600ft) system, the second of its kind developed by the company, is periodically taken to land and emptied for recycling.

The Ocean Cleanup uses a long, u-shaped barrier, similar to a net, that is pulled through patches of rubbish by boats. It moves slowly to try to avoid harming marine life.

But noting the risks of microplastics to the heart of the marine ecosystem, Prof Lampitt said he thought that rather than cleaning up plastic in our seas, "it is really is an issue of stopping the tap and stopping this material getting into the ocean".

Kleitsch-Killam says ICON initially reached out to a familiar conventional vendor, but the capital expenditure (CapEx) was too high and only covered the robotic unit—not any of the essential auxiliary equipment.

Cameras powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are used to continuously scan the ocean's surface for plastic and calibrate the team's computer models, helping them understand which parts of the Pacific area to target.

"In rivers you really only have one shot at catching the plastic - it just flows by and if you don't catch it, it's guaranteed to enter the ocean," he said.

With a command center for remote login, Formic monitors its systems 24/7 to moderate temperatures, look for anomalies and find opportunities to improve usage and performance, according to Ilkhechi. “In addition, when a customer’s needs change, we can reprogram systems to accommodate new projects. And for customers with Formic Flex, we can even swap out their entire system—all at no cost to them,” he notes.

The world's biggest area of accumulated ocean plastic, commonly dubbed "the Great Pacific Garbage Patch", is located in the North Pacific Ocean.

Research carried out by the company in 2021 suggests about 1,000 of the world's rivers are the source of 80% of the river-borne plastic contributing to global ocean plastic pollution.

“Automation seemed out of reach, financially, until our CEO asked Jeff Galindo, our executive operations specialist, to find a solution,” she explained. “An industry friend introduced him to Formic, and he was blown away. With no upfront CapEx and a low $10/hour rate, Formic’s ‘Robotics-as-a-Service’ model just seemed too good to be true. We were even more impressed to learn that Formic would manage the maintenance, upkeep and programming of the system.”

The 28-year-old founder of non-profit environmental organisation The Ocean Cleanup has been working on ways to filter plastic waste out of the Pacific Ocean for nearly 10 years.

"When you look at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, there's some areas that have a very high density of plastic and other areas that are virtually empty," he said.

Founded in 2001, family-owned, Phoenix-based ICON Injection Molding caters to a range of industries, making parts for laboratory use, security devices, pool equipment and more. “With a dedication to ‘Excellence from Art to Part,’ we have grown organically to become a go-to provider of custom plastic injection molding,” says Nicole Kleitsch-Killam, chief administrative officer at ICON. “It also means that if a customer wants to order only 1,000 parts this month and 100,000 next month, we have to be able to react.”

“This collaboration with Formic has been a case study of sorts for us, reflecting the potential of RaaS and its impact on ICON's future,” she continues. “Right now, we’re focused on expansion to a new building on our premises, which ultimately means we’ve got room to amplify the role of robotics in what we do…We look forward to collaborating with Formic to determine what project or task to automate next.”

ICON and Formic collaborated to design and deploy a custom automated solution. Taking a technology-agnostic approach, Formic sourced hardware and software components from a range of suppliers, taking performance and suitability for ICON’s needs into consideration. The RaaS offering also adapts as needs evolve.

While trying to take on the world's marine pollution problem is undoubtedly tough, and contingent on reduced plastic production and consumption in the first place, Boyan has high hopes for the future.

Since implementing RaaS, ICON has experienced significant improvements across various performance indicators, including a 20% increase in production, a 40% reduction in operational expenses and a 30% improvement in cycle-time efficiency, according to Kleitsch-Killam.