Gracefully hypnotic, like a macabre ballet dancer, calmly drifting along with the flow of water, complete with tassels waving behind it like a nightmare bridal gown train. With gelatinous bodies and dangling tentacles full of painfully venomous stinging cells, jellyfishes look more like a horror movie prop rather than a real animal.
Jellyfish are often viewed as the irritating cockroaches of the ocean. They have survived and thrived for millions of years without having to change much. Like that pesky bug that loves haunting your kitchen, jellyfishes tend to appear when we least expect it in nuclear plant cooling water systems and fisheries, triggering conflicts that people currently have no clear solutions for (Gershwin and Earle, 2013).
With the declining health of oceans, the number of jellyfishes has increased. Large blooms of jellyfish aggregations are occurring more and more frequently (Gershwin and Earle, 2013). Like Man’s best friend the cockroach, albeit a one-sided friendship, they are considered highly annoying. However, scientists at GoJelly aims to change that belief and investigate the usability of jellyfishes as fertilizers, food and most importantly, a means to clean microplastic (About | GoJelly, n.d.)!
Like the phrase “killing 2 birds with 1 stone”, the GoJelly project aims to overcome both microplastic and jellyfish environmental issues by solving 1 problem with the other. By creating a microplastic filter with jellyfish mucus as the main feedstock (About | GoJelly, n.d.), this unorthodox method could potentially:
1. Reduce the plastic in the ocean (Freeman et al., 2020)
2. Create demand for jellyfish thereby utilizing and curbing the increase in population
3. Create more jobs for commercial fishermen during off-seasons
The scientists at GoJelly are currently developing a prototype filter to be used in sewage plants that can absorb microplastic particles. This is because jellyfish mucus acts like a natural adhesive for plastic particles. If successful, this technology could be used out in the harsh environments of the ocean! However, more research needs to be done on the sustainability of this technology.
Such “blue growth” projects are interesting as they may provide long-term strategies to sustainable growth in marine and maritime sectors (Eikeset et al., 2018). There is much potential for growth and innovation in this field. After all, the world is constantly searching for new resources to exploit. The usage of jellyfish biomass could lead to a circular economy.
Jellyfish usage is very versatile. Since jellyfishes contain nutrients such as phosphate, potassium and nitrogen that are released into the sea, it could be used as agro-biological fertilizers (Emadodin et al., 2020). Furthermore, it can be food for us that could potentially be very healthy once the venom is removed (Bleve, Ramires, Gallo and Leone, 2019)!
Of course, there is much to be studied as to the impacts and feasibility of using jellyfishes. After all, this project is still in its early stages. What is important to note is that there is a shift in focus of projects from merely finding ways to clean up or solve problems to instead finding ways of achieving a circular economy where resources do not go to waste.
What are your thoughts on this? Is this project too good to be true? Is it really possible to achieve a zero-waste circular economy? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Reference:
Bleve, G., Ramires, F., Gallo, A. and Leone, A., 2019. Identification of Safety and Quality Parameters for Preparation of Jellyfish Based Novel Food Products. Foods, 8(7), p.263.
Eikeset, A., Mazzarella, A., Davíðsdóttir, B., Klinger, D., Levin, S., Rovenskaya, E. and Stenseth, N., 2018. What is blue growth? The semantics of “Sustainable Development” of marine environments. Marine Policy, 87, pp.177-179.
Emadodin, I., Reinsch, T., Rotter, A., Orlando-Bonaca, M., Taube, F. and Javidpour, J., 2020. A perspective on the potential of using marine organic fertilizers for the sustainable management of coastal ecosystem services. Environmental Sustainability, 3(1), pp.105-115.
Freeman, S., Booth, A., Sabbah, I., Tiller, R., Dierking, J., Klun, K., Rotter, A., Ben-David, E., Javidpour, J. and Angel, D., 2020. Between source and sea: The role of wastewater treatment in reducing marine microplastics. Journal of Environmental Management, 266, p.110642.
Gershwin, L. and Earle, S., 2013. Stung!. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Gojelly.eu. n.d. About | Gojelly. [online] Available at: <https://gojelly.eu/about/> [Accessed 23 July 2020].
