Saltstraumen Norway by Thomas Kleine
RESEARCH

Ocean Clean Up

Celebrating World Oceans Day

World Oceans Day on 8th June every year is the perfect time to change our patterns of behaviour, so we can benefit the waters that connect us all. It is a global collaboration for a cleaner future.

Just one person can make a difference

Take Boyen Slat, a young Dutch environmentalist who is inventing a system to rid the sea of plastic pollution. Currently, 100 million tonnes of plastic are manufactured each year, of which 10 percent end up in the world’s oceans, creating a vast toxic stew that threatens marine life with extinction. Thrown away as rubbish, our shopping bags, bottle caps, toothbrushes and sandwich wrappers will, in fact, never break down. They will last for millennia. Without action, there could soon be more plastic than fish in the sea.

Slat hopes to clean up the world’s oceans by removing floating plastic debris, using groundbreaking designs that eliminate the risk to sea life. He has conceived huge floating barriers – gyres – that could extract 55 shipping containers full of plastic, every day. The technology is hugely ambitious, but possible. The Ocean Cleanup team is working hard on its goal to initiate the full-scale cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by 2020. Be inspired. #WorldOceansDay


The Ocean Clean Up
The Ocean Clean Up