The Ocean Cleanup
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| Formation | 2013 Delft, Netherlands |
|---|---|
| Type | Stichting |
| Purpose | Cleaning the oceans |
| Headquarters | Delft, Netherlands |
| Boyan Slat | |
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Staff
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60+ |
| Website | www.theoceancleanup.com |
The Ocean Cleanup is a foundation that develops technologies to extract plastic pollution from the oceans and prevent more plastic debris from entering ocean waters. The organization was founded in 2013 by Boyan Slat, a Dutch born inventor-entrepreneur of Croatian origin who serves as its CEO, and has received over $31.5 million in donations since foundation, from sponsors including Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff, philantrophist Peter Thiel, Julius Baer Foundation and Royal DSM. The Ocean Cleanup also raised over 2 million USD with the help of a crowdfunding campaign in 2014. The foundation’s headquarters are in Delft, the Netherlands.
The removal of plastic debris on the open seas is still in its infancy. Some initiatives, such as Project Kaisei, have used ships with nets to catch plastics, primarily for research purposes. The Ocean Cleanup proposes a larger-scale, passive method of removing marine debris in or near the ocean gyres by means of 1–2-kilometre (0.62–1.24 mi) drifting floating systems, slowed down by a sea anchor at an approximate depth of 600 metres (0.37 mi). A solid screen underneath the floating pipe will catch and concentrate the debris not directly on the surface. These U-shaped systems will drift freely in the North Pacific gyre and concentrate plastic towards a central point where it can be extracted by support vessels for transportation back to shore. The first system is set to be deployed by mid-2018 and The Ocean Cleanup estimates to be able to clean up 50% of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in five years’ time as of full-scale deployment in 2020.
Through a series of oceanic expeditions, The Ocean Cleanup is researching the total mass and the distribution of plastic debris in the oceans, as well as technically and economically feasible ocean plastic recycling methods, technologies and equipment. In August 2015, it conducted its so-called Mega Expedition, in which a fleet of approximately 30 vessels crossed the Great Pacific garbage patch using manta trawls to measure the concentration, spatial and size distribution of plastic there. Researchers aboard mothership R/V Ocean Starr reported sighting of much more large-sized plastic debris in the Great Pacific Ocean gyre than expected. According to The Ocean Cleanup website, this expedition was conducted in preparation for a large-scale cleanup of the Great Pacific garbage patch, which it intends to start in 2020.
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