Every year, Dutch Design Awards (DDA) celebrates the best of Dutch design. This year during Dutch Design Week (DDW) we will announce a new DDA winner on DDW TV every afternoon for eight days. The seventh category is Product! And the winner is… The Ocean Cleanup X Fabrique with their project The Interceptor.
The Interceptor | The Ocean Cleanup X Fabrique
Around 80% of all the plastic in the oceans comes from rivers. The Interceptor is The Ocean Cleanup’s answer to this problem. The Interceptor has been designed to independently gather waste from rivers and is 100% solar-powered. Waste enters The Interceptor through the natural flow of the river and is then captured on a conveyor belt. Each Interceptor is connected to the internet, so that The Ocean Cleanup is able to continuously monitor and collect data, and automatically inform local operators when the collection containers are full. The power of The Interceptor lies in its autonomous nature and the scalability of production. The more that are put into use, the more can be cleaned up, bringing the ultimate goal of this Dutch non-profit organisation in sight: clean oceans.
— ‘A courageous example of the problem-solving capabilities of design. The technology of The Interceptor has been well thought out on all levels by The Ocean Cleanup and Fabrique and the potential operational scale of deploying multiple Interceptors is promising’ - the jury.
Jury statement
Coming up with structural solutions to serious environmental threats is a gigantic ambition. The Ocean Cleanup demonstrates that it is a process in which you can learn through doing. Despite the pressure and criticism for earlier projects, Boyan Slat and Fabrique have now courageously sketched a new scenario that brings us a step closer to the source of the problem: plastic waste that travels in rivers and ends up in the ocean. A great collaboration between young talented individuals and a renowned agency, where design is used as problem solver. The technology has been thought through on all levels and the potential operational scale of deploying multiple Interceptors is promising.
Product
This category is about industrial design or limited editions that improve life and make it easier. From products for the working or living environments, to human or animal mobility, for the consumer or the B2B market.
Committee: Joost Alferink, Ingeborg van Lieshout, Lonny van Ryswyck, Cees van Dok, Chris Kabel.
The other nominees in this category were Koninklijke Auping with Auping Evolve and curators Alexandre Humbert, Lucas Maassen, Tom Loois and Angelique Spaninks with The Object is Absent.
DDA20 on DDW TV
For eight days, we will announce the winner of each category every afternoon at 16:00h during ‘DDA Award Show Live’ on DDW TV. These afternoons are hosted by none other than Isolde Hallensleben and give us the opportunity to take a closer look at the three nominees per category. From 17 to 24 October you can watch the DDA Award Show Live at 16:00 on ddw.nl.