Founded 2013
Dutch inventor Boyan Slat founded The Ocean Cleanup at the age of 18 in his hometown of Delft, the Netherlands.
Non-profit foundation
We are fully reliant on donations from individuals, corporations, governments and institutions.
HQ Rotterdam
The Ocean Cleanup’s team consists of more than 150 professionals with different backgrounds and expertise; all bound together to one vision: rid the world’s oceans of plastic.
Big problems require
big solutions
Every year, hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic enter the oceans, primarily from rivers. And the plastic that’s afloat within the oceans isn’t going away by itself. To effectively solve the problem, we need to both halt the trash flow from rivers, and remove legacy plastics from the oceans at the same time.
The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organization, is developing and scaling solutions to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. Our aim is to put ourselves out of business once the oceans are clean.
A simple idea turned into
a moonshot project
At 16 years of age, Boyan Slat saw more plastic bags than fish when scuba diving in Greece. He thought: “Why can’t we just clean this up?” This question led him to research the plastic pollution problem for a school project. He learned about plastic accumulating in five large oceanic gyres, the largest one being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In 2012, Boyan Slat held a TEDx talk about how to rid the world’s oceans of plastic using technology. The video went viral, and the momentum that followed allowed him to drop out of school and found The Ocean Cleanup.
The impact of cleanup
Research shows the majority of plastic in the gyres (by mass) is made up of larger debris. By removing the plastic while most of it is still large, we prevent it from breaking down into dangerous microplastics.
Our aim is to have removed 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.
We plan to do this by cleaning up the legacy plastic – the plastic already floating in the ocean – and by stopping the sources of plastic flowing into our oceans.
Macroplastic in ocean surface layer. To clean up the ocean we need to stop new plastic coming in and clean up what is already out there. Lebreton et al (2019).
global mission partners
We are honored to have a committed group of partners helping with in-kind support and funding.
Join the cleanup
Plastic pollution is a challenge we can tackle — together. Whether you donate, collaborate, or simply stay informed, you’ll be part of a global community working to ensure clean oceans for generations to come.
Help remove plastic
Every donation fuels plastic removal missions and drives new solutions to stop plastic at its source.
Make a donation
Become a partner
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Work with purpose
Join a mission-driven team combining technology and impact to tackle one of the world’s biggest environmental challenges.
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