The Ocean Cleanup develops technologies to extract, prevent, and intercept plastic pollution.

The Ocean Cleanup develops technologies to extract, prevent, and intercept plastic pollution. The Ocean Cleanup’s goal is to fuel the world’s fight against oceanic plastic pollution, by initiating the largest cleanup in history.

After having worked with a team of 100 volunteering scientists and engineers, a 2014 study confirmed the passive system is indeed likely a feasible and cost-effective method to remove half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 10 years’ time.

The Problem

The plastic pollution problem

·         Millions of tons of plastic have entered the oceans (UNEP 2005)

·         Plastic concentrates in five rotating currents, called gyres (Maximenko et al., 2012)

·         In these gyres there is on average six times more plastic than zooplankton by dry weight (Moore et al., 2001) 

The Solution

It is of course essential to first close the tap, to prevent any more plastic from reaching the ocean in the first place.

However, this will not be a solution for the plastics already trapped in the currents of the gyres.

The Ocean Cleanup works to develop world’s first feasible method to clean the gyres of plastic, using the currents to our advantage.

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1 - Extraction Why move through the oceans, if the oceans can move through you? An array of floating barriers first catches and concentrates the debris, enabling a platform to efficiently extract the plastic afterwards. We have now proven The Ocean Cleanup Array concept is likely a feasible and viable method to remove almost half the plastic from the North Pacific Garbage patch in 10 years, while being an estimated 7900x faster and 33x cheaper than conventional methods. The Ocean Cleanup now works towards a large-scale and operational pilot in 3-4 years’ time.

2 - Prevention Prevention is an essential part of stopping plastic pollution, but will require radical changes in all levels of society. The Ocean Cleanup aims to assist with these efforts by stressing its importance, and by raising awareness about the problem and its solutions. Obviously, prevention is something we are all responsible for.

3 - Interception In the second phase of the project, The Ocean Cleanup plans to develop spin-offs of our passive collection technology for implementation in river deltas and other waterways that transport plastic to the oceans. This could provide a rapid reduction of the influx of new plastics into the oceans. http://www.theoceancleanup.com/