As an industrial designer with a proficiency in injection molding, Pete Ceglinski's job was to "make plastic products," he explains. "And after a while I realized that we didn't need the stuff that I was making, so I stopped."

Ceglinski instead turned his attention to designing an awesome product conceived of by fellow Aussie surfer Andrew Turton, a boat builder and sailor. Both men had witnessed marinas covered in floating garbage, and resolved to do something about it. What they've come up with is the clever Seabin:

I love that Ceglinski and Turton's long-term goal is for the product to make itself obsolete, but in the best of ways. It takes a lot of conviction to quit a bill-paying job for the sake of the greater good, and we're happy to report that the Seabin has just reached its $230,000 crowdfunding goal.

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They can still use more help, of course. "The possibilities of what we can do if we get some smarter brains involved are endless!" Ceglinski writes. "This is just the beginning!"

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One thing I wondered was how they end up trapping fish in the device. The diagram below explains:

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"We have never caught a fish or marine animal in 4 years of testing Seabins," writes Ceglinski. "We also have a meeting with a marine Biologist on the 22nd dec [presumably an update is pending] to start a study into the microscopic marine life."

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If you'd like to contribute to the project, click here. (At press time there were three days left to pledge.)