• Founded 2013

    Dutch inventor Boyan Slat founded The Ocean Cleanup at the age of 18 in his hometown of Delft, the Netherlands.

  • Staff 90+

    The Ocean Cleanup's team consists of more than 80 engineers, researchers, scientists and computational modelers working daily to rid the world's oceans of plastic.

  • HQ Rotterdam

    Our headquarters are located in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. We are a registered charity as a 'Stichting' in the Netherlands, and a 501(c)(3) in the US.

Big problems require big solutions

The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization, developing advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic.

By utilizing the ocean currents to our advantage, our passive drifting systems are estimated to clean up half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 5 years’ time.

Photo of Maersk Launcher with System 001

We must defuse this
ticking time bomb

  • Environment

    Plastic pollution in the world's oceans is one of the biggest environmental issues of our time, impacting more than 600 marine species.

  • Economy

    According to the United Nations, plastic pollution is conservatively estimated to have a yearly financial damage of 13 billion USD. The costs stem from the plastic’s impact on marine life, tourism, fisheries and businesses.

  • Health

    Plastic pollution does not only impact sea life, it also carries toxic pollutants into the food chain – a food chain including us humans.

A simple idea turned into a moonshot project

The Ocean Cleanup is designing and developing the first feasible method to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. Every year, millions of tons of plastic enter the ocean. A significant percentage of this plastic drifts into large systems of circulating ocean currents, also known as gyres. Once trapped in a gyre, the plastic will break down into microplastics and become increasingly easier to mistake for food by sea life.

Going after it with vessels and nets would be costly, time-consuming, labor-intensive and lead to vast amounts of carbon emission and by-catch. That is why The Ocean Cleanup is developing a passive system, moving with the currents – just like the plastic – to catch it. The system consists of a 600-meter-long floater that sits at the surface of the water and a tapered 3-meter-deep skirt attached below. The floater provides buoyancy to the system and prevents plastic from flowing over it, while the skirt stops debris from escaping underneath. As the system moves through the water, the plastic continues to collect within the boundaries of the U-shaped system.

“For society to progress, we should not only move forward but also clean up after ourselves.”

Boyan Slat, CEO & Founder

By deploying a fleet of systems, The Ocean Cleanup has estimated to be able to remove 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in just 5 years’ time. The concentrated plastic will be brought back to shore for recycling and sold to B2C companies. The revenue gained will help fund the cleanup expansion to the other four ocean gyres.

In preparation for full-scale deployment, The Ocean Cleanup organized several expeditions to map the plastic pollution problem in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to an unprecedented degree of detail. The team simultaneously advanced its design through a series of scale model tests, including prototypes deployed in the North Sea 2016, 2017 and 2018. The first beta cleanup system was deployed from San Francisco Bay on September 8, being towed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to commence the cleanup.

Awards & Recognitions

Leadership

Test. To succeed in its mission, The Ocean Cleanup’s management team relies on a rare combination of innovative talent and high-level industry experience. The organization also benefits from the invaluable support and guidance of its advisory boards.

Management Team

Boyan Slat CEO & Founder
Lonneke Holierhoek COO
Jos Huijbregts CFO

Supervisory Board

Feike Sijbesma Senior Advisor to Supervisory Board
Chris van der Vorm Communications
Evert Greup Funding and Finance
Frederik Gerner Technology and R&D

Scientific Advisory Board

Prof. Dr. Richard Spinrad Marine Technology & Oceanography, Marine Technology Society
Prof. Dr. Alex Oude Elferink International Law of the Sea, Utrecht University
Prof. Dr. Gerhard J. Herndl Ecology and Biological Oceanography, University of Vienna
Prof. Dr. Mirek Kaminski Offshore Structures, Delft University of Technology
Frederik Gerner Chairman on behalf of The Ocean Cleanup

Join
the team

Contribute with your skills and build a clean future with us.

Fund the cleanup

Help us bridge the gap between the first system and full-scale deployment.