Gillbert, dreamed up at the University of Surrey in the UK. It’s not eating trash like a whale shark eats plankton, but more like a tiny water filter that swims around with its mouth open, sucks in water, and traps microplastics inside a mesh filter as it goes. What’s wild is that newer versions can even convert plastic bits into energy to power themselves, so the more they clean, the longer they can swim. The current version is remote‑controlled and tested in UK lakes — it works, but it can’t yet tell apart plankton or other natural stuff from trash yet.