Auckland boat builder Andrew Lee, has invented an aqua drone which not only finds rubbish in waterways, it also scoops it up.

He has built three of these unique vessels over the past seven years, the latest of which is operated by remote control and can scoop up 260 litres of rubbish.

Photo: Supplied / Andrew Lee

Lee tells Jesse Mulligan he had been thinking about the problem of rubbish in the water for a long time, and one day the idea came to him.

“I just put my boat-building skills to work and created something that basically worked.”

He says after the first prototype went out, he was given a grant and decided to scale up for the second boat.

“We looked at other innovations, we put solar panels on it so it’s fully rechargeable. And then, the third one we actually did the opposite, we scaled down.”

Lee says the idea for the smaller one is that it trawls through smaller waterways like marinas and can be easily carried.

The latest boat has a fine mesh that picks up everything from bottles to cigarette butts, to things that are “a bit disgusting”.

Photo: Supplied / Andrew Lee

The first boat was autonomous but the latest ones are remote controlled with on-board cameras.

As for the future of the boats, Lee says they’re keen to work with organisations in New Zealand who are interested.

“We also have a global perspective because it is a global problem. But certainly anyone interested in New Zealand were keen to work with.”

In the meantime, he hopes for a bit more grant funding to finish off the production capabilities and start pumping out more boats.