A floatable-material harvester is disclosed, including a vacuumsource, transport hose, and a floatable-material receiver. In oneembodiment, the transport hose has at least one air inductor/intakealong its length, which allows air to enter the transport hose toaccelerate its contents, by negative pressure air induction. In anotherembodiment, a transport hose has at least one floatable-material thrusteralong its length, comprised of at least one nozzle, which providespressurized fluid (e.g., air or water) in the direction of the flow of theharvested floatable material by positive pressure induction. A method isdisclosed whereby the floatable material harvester is used to harvest anabsorbent material (e.g., wood chips, straw, perlite, zeolite,polypropylene mesh, titanate nanofibres) that has absorbed a pollutant(e.g., oil, solvent, radioactive isotopes) from a beach or in water.
