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<p>The seafloor has become the planet’s “Invisible Landfill,” a neglected pollution sink where macro litter accumulates with severe ecological consequences yet remains absent from policy discussions. Plastics comprise 60–70% of marine litter, with an estimated 20–25&#xa0;million tons entering oceans annually. Unlike floating debris, seafloor macro litter persists in benthic habitats, smothering marine life, disrupting sediment chemistry, and altering trophic interactions, ultimately threatening biodiversity and ecosystem stability. Despite global efforts to reduce marine litter, scalable, ecologically responsible retrieval strategies remain lacking. This paper reviews autonomous retrieval technologies, assessing feasibility, scalability, and ecological impact to guide future mitigation efforts. The review focuses on seafloor litter removal technologies that integrate both detection and collection, explicitly excluding trawling and diver-assisted retrieval due to their environmental and labour-intensive drawbacks. A structured narrative review was conducted using peer-reviewed literature (WoS, SCOPUS) and cross-sectoral data from CORDIS, Keep.eu, NSF, NOAA, COBSEA, GPML, and ESA, enabling a global assessment of tested marine litter collection systems. Of the 192 reviewed initiatives, only SeaClear, MAELSTROM, and SeaClear 2.0 met the predefined selection criteria for this review by integrating both real-time detection and active collection of ocean-floor macro litter under real-world-tested conditions. Unlike many AI-driven systems limited to detection, these systems combine marine litter identification with selective collection, offering non-invasive alternatives to conventional trawling. All three have been tested in European waters, particularly the Mediterranean Sea, a marine litter hotspot due to its semi-enclosed geography and dense maritime activity. These findings highlight the EU’s leadership in seafloor litter innovation and suggest that technologies developed in the Mediterranean may serve as adaptable models for other coastal regions.</p>

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Review of innovative technologies for integrated detection and collection of marine macro litter on the ocean floor

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月21日

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  • Iva Pozniak,
  • Marijana Pećarević,
  • Marina Brailo Šćepanović,
  • Ana Bratoš Cetinić,
  • Ivana Palunko

摘要

The seafloor has become the planet’s “Invisible Landfill,” a neglected pollution sink where macro litter accumulates with severe ecological consequences yet remains absent from policy discussions. Plastics comprise 60–70% of marine litter, with an estimated 20–25 million tons entering oceans annually. Unlike floating debris, seafloor macro litter persists in benthic habitats, smothering marine life, disrupting sediment chemistry, and altering trophic interactions, ultimately threatening biodiversity and ecosystem stability. Despite global efforts to reduce marine litter, scalable, ecologically responsible retrieval strategies remain lacking. This paper reviews autonomous retrieval technologies, assessing feasibility, scalability, and ecological impact to guide future mitigation efforts. The review focuses on seafloor litter removal technologies that integrate both detection and collection, explicitly excluding trawling and diver-assisted retrieval due to their environmental and labour-intensive drawbacks. A structured narrative review was conducted using peer-reviewed literature (WoS, SCOPUS) and cross-sectoral data from CORDIS, Keep.eu, NSF, NOAA, COBSEA, GPML, and ESA, enabling a global assessment of tested marine litter collection systems. Of the 192 reviewed initiatives, only SeaClear, MAELSTROM, and SeaClear 2.0 met the predefined selection criteria for this review by integrating both real-time detection and active collection of ocean-floor macro litter under real-world-tested conditions. Unlike many AI-driven systems limited to detection, these systems combine marine litter identification with selective collection, offering non-invasive alternatives to conventional trawling. All three have been tested in European waters, particularly the Mediterranean Sea, a marine litter hotspot due to its semi-enclosed geography and dense maritime activity. These findings highlight the EU’s leadership in seafloor litter innovation and suggest that technologies developed in the Mediterranean may serve as adaptable models for other coastal regions.