Updates

Research

Understanding the rising speed of plastic

The Ocean Cleanup Research Team continues to analyze data from our expeditions, including our Mega Expedition which provided us with the largest sample of ocean plastic ever collected (1.1 million particles weighing…

Oceanography, Research

Ocean Plastic Mostly Near Surface, Study Shows

It is a commonly held belief that plastic pollution is spread from the ocean surface to seabed. Our newest study, published today in Nature Scientific Reports, shows that at least…

Oceanography, Research

The Ocean Cleanup Aerial expedition: mission update

The Aerial Expedition is about to begin! In a few days, we will start conducting visual surveys, supplemented with state-of-art sensors to quantify the biggest and most harmful type of marine…

Research

Announcing the Aerial Expedition

We are proud to announce The Ocean Cleanup’s next major research mission: the Aerial Expedition. In September and October 2016, we will conduct a series of low-speed, low-altitude flights across…

Engineering, Research

Engineering An Ocean Cleanup Barrier From Scratch

How we design a system that does not ‘fight the ocean’, but rather ‘moves with it’?

Research

A deep dive into plastic flow modeling

One of the main issues we are tackling at The Ocean Cleanup is to determine where, and in what concentrations, plastic pollution is distributed throughout the oceans. In order to…

Engineering, Research, Testing

First Cleanup Barrier Test to be deployed in Dutch waters

The Ocean Cleanup will be deploying a 100 meter-long barrier segment in the second quarter of 2016 in the North Sea, 23 km off the coast of The Netherlands. It…

Oceanography, Research

Research vessel “Ocean Starr” kicks off Mega Expedition

Today the 171 ft research vessel ‘’Ocean Starr’’ departed from San Francisco, marking the official start of the Mega Expedition. This will be the largest research expedition in history, in…

Oceanography, Research

Final vertical distribution expedition completed

In 2013 we became the first to measure how the plastic soup in our oceans is vertically distributed in the top layers of the water surface. Two years and six…

Research

It’s here: Feasibility Study V2.0

Feasibility Study V2.0 is now available for download.