Reef Float Shortlisted for Innovator & Start-Up Showcase at Marinas26

The Marina Industries Association (MIA) has selected ReefFloat as one of five finalists for the Innovators & Start-Up Showcase at Marinas26 in Australia this May.

In addition to exhibiting, we have been asked to speak at the conference about how ReefFloat can offer marinas an alternative to EPS for pontoon floats and breakwaters.

Australians are more aware of the EPS problem than others after the recent floods in Brisbane, where hundreds of pontoons were washed out to sea. They coined the phrase ‘White Spill’ to describe the environmental disaster that followed, as beaches and patches of ocean were covered in white balls.

ReefFloat was born out of a desire to offer an alternative to EPS that is both inert in the marine environment (so that if a pontoon is lost in a storm, it does not harm marine life) and can be recycled at zero or very low cost at the end of its life (eps floats mostly go for landfill as hazardous waste, and the cost for this can be more than the cost of a new float, doubling its through life costs).

ReefFloat is made using a waterproof ultra-low-density concrete core inside a full-strength engineered concrete skin. It supports biodiversity, and at the end of its life (which we expect to be significantly longer than a concrete foam float, at around 30 years), it can be crushed locally into hardcore.

As well as a longer life, ReefFloat also has a lower CoG and a higher inertia, both of which offer benefits as a pontoon float.

WHY DO PONTOONS USE EPS?

It’s low-cost, low-density, and only absorbs a small amount of water.

HOW DOES IT ESCAPE?

The problem only arises when the EPS escapes into the ocean, which happens for two reasons.

First is long-term release. As the protective concrete, plastic, and textile skins fail, crack, and tear, the foam inside is exposed to the ocean, and soon the small foam balls, of which there are around 20 million on a single float, start to break off.

Second is the total loss of events. As marinas are built in increasingly exposed locations, and the frequency of 100-year storms increases, we have seen more incidents where whole pontoons and marinas are lost, breaking up ashore or drifting out to sea.

WHY IS EPS SO BAD?

The balls take hundreds of years to break down, and because they resemble food, they are ingested by marine life, including turtles, crabs, and fish.

The foam balls are also almost impossible to recover at scale. Where you would use booms, skimmers, and chemicals to deal with an oil spill, there is no method or technology to clean up a White Spill.

HOW BIG IS THE MARKET?

It is estimated that over 10 million marina and pontoon berths have been installed globally, and since the 1970’s, the majority have been built using EPS.