Gills

Gills turns every cargo ship into an ocean cleaner. Developed as a team for the Lexus Design Award New Zealand 2026, themed “Discover Your Space”, it is a compact, hydrodynamic unit that mounts magnetically to a cargo ship’s hull, with no drilling, dry-docking or structural modification.

Ocean plastic exists at two scales. Floating debris is visible and collectible, but nothing in the world’s shipping routes is set up to collect it, while microplastics are spread through the whole water column. Meanwhile tens of thousands of cargo ships cross the ocean every day, moving enormous volumes of water past their hulls and collecting nothing. As the vessel moves, Gills collects floating plastic from the water in its path, passes water through a secondary microplastic capture stage, and logs GPS-tagged data on where plastic concentrates. It recovers value from motion that is already happening, with no added fuel burn and no change of route.

The main body is made from a sustainable flax composite. A turbine powers the onboard electronics, including a camera and water quality sensors, marine-life avoidance is built in, and a door releases the collected plastic at the dock. I designed Gills with Madison Reynolds, Lillian Anderson and Mia Chen for DES220 Design Innovation, presenting it with a physical model, poster, video and printed brochures.

• 0Drilling or dry-docking to fit
• 0Added fuel burn or route change
• 4People in the team