The Largest Cleanup in History. Follow the latest updates on our mission to rid the world's oceans of plastic.
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
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Did you know that for just 10$ a month, you can remove 2300 plastic bottles from rivers worldwide?
Choose your impact: theoceancleanup.com/donate/
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Before... and after.
Interceptor 006 has been operational in the Rio Las Vacas, Guatemala, since June 2023. In this catch alone, over 210,000 kg of trash were stopped from reaching the Gulf of Honduras and the Caribbean Sea.
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Update: we are coming to Baranquilla, Colombia! 🇨🇴
We just signed an MoU with @alcaldiabquilla to deploy Interceptor solutions in the Magdalena River and the Caribbean...
...to protect key ecosystems such as mangroves and beaches, and safeguard the livelihoods of fishing and tourism communities.
Baranquilla, and the recently announced project in Santa Marta, mark the start of our work in Colombia: the 13th country we'll be operating in.
Barranquilla is part of our 30 Cities Program to stop up to one-third of all global river plastic by 2030...
And we still have more news on Colombia and other projects coming soon - stay tuned!
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Buenas noticias: ¡estamos llegando a Barranquilla, Colombia! 🇨🇴
Acabamos de firmar un Memorando de Entendimiento con @alcaldiabquilla para desplegar nuestras soluciones Interceptor en la cuenca baja del río Magdalena y el mar Caribe, y así proteger ecosistemas clave como manglares y playas, cuidando también el sustento de las comunidades que viven de la pesca y del turismo.
Barranquilla, sumada al proyecto que anunciamos hace poco en Santa Marta, marca el inicio de nuestro viaje en Colombia: ¡el decimotercer país en integrarse a nuestra operación global!
Además, forma parte de nuestro ‘30 Cities Program’ con el que buscamos frenar hasta un tercio del plástico que llega a los océanos desde los ríos para 2030.
Muy pronto tendremos más noticias sobre Colombia y otros proyectos. ¡Sigan atentos!
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Learn more about our plans in Barranquilla: visit.theoceancleanup.com/3V…
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The Ocean Cleanup retweeted
One of the most satisfying parts of the phase we’re now in at @TheOceanCleanup is that we’re actually starting to change the lives of the people who depend on the ocean being clean.
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The Ocean Cleanup retweeted
We made this video a couple of years ago and I think it's still the best summary of how ocean plastic pollution works.
Key points:
- <0.1% of plastic waste actually makes it to the ocean. Ocean plastic pollution is a leakage problem.
- 1% of rivers contribute roughly 80% of plastic inflow.
- Most of these rivers are in coastal cities in middle-income countries, where people now have enough wealth but no adequate waste collection infrastructure.
- High-income countries barely contribute to the problem. OECD countries consume 1/3 of all plastic but are responsible for <0.5% of ocean inflow. If you live in a rich country and don’t litter, your contribution to the problem is basically 0.
- Nearshore and offshore plastic pollution are very different.
Nearshore plastic pollution mostly originates from rivers and is not very persistent; after leaving river mouths, plastic tends to drift around for weeks to months before washing up on a coastline.
Plastic in the offshore gyres mostly originates from the fishing industry and is very persistent; it is trapped indefinitely because there are hardly any coastlines in these currents to ‘catch’ this waste.
This is why our catch from our Interceptors and our ocean cleanup system looks totally different.
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We'll be deploying Interceptors in Santa Marta, Colombia. 🇨🇴 Learn more: visit.theoceancleanup.com/4g…
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Here's what happened at The Ocean Cleanup in August:
💠 We announced the expansion of our operations to our 13th country, Colombia. We signed an MoU with the City of Santa Marta to deploy Interceptors in the Río Manzanares and Río Gaira, to stop plastic before it reaches the Caribbean Sea. This is part of our 30 Cities Program, which aims to prevent up to one-third of all river plastic entering the ocean by 2030.
💠 In Panama City, heavy rains brought a huge amount of trash into the waterways. But Interceptors 024 and 025 were there to stop it from reaching Panama Bay.
💠 Similarly, in Jamaica, Interceptors 011, 013, and 015 prevented tons of waste from reaching the Caribbean Sea.
💠 In the Dominican Republic, an upgrade to Interceptor 004 is coming soon, with a new 400-meter barrier to capture more plastic and invasive water hyacinths.
💠 Our team just returned after 6 weeks in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, testing our Smart Steering Strategy. We’ll be sharing what we learned soon.
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While some were watching the solar eclipse, Interceptor 011 was catching trash on August 12th, 2026:
P.S. This is just one of nine Interceptors we've deployed in Kingston, Jamaica.🇯🇲
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The Ocean Cleanup retweeted
This video of Santa Marta’s Río Manzanares was one of the first videos I saw of plastic flowing into the oceans, and it played a big part in my decision to expand our scope to rivers. Which makes me all the more excited that we’ll soon be deploying here!
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UPDATE: we are expanding our operations to Santa Marta, Colombia. 🇨🇴
We just signed an MoU with the City of Santa Marta to deploy Interceptor solutions to capture plastic waste in the Río Manzanares and Río Gaira before it reaches the Caribbean Sea.
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The Ocean Cleanup retweeted
Every few months this map goes viral while it doesn’t represent reality at all.
In Meijer et al. 2021 we used a more detailed framework and a much larger dataset of measurements and found it’s actually ~1000 rivers that need to be tackled. If it’d be only 10 we’d be done ready!
95% of Ocean plastic comes from just 10 rivers, and most people don't know this
Community note
The 95% figure refers to 88-95% of plastic transported by rivers into the ocean, not 95% of all ocean plastic which includes direct coastal inputs; newer research shows top 10 rivers contribute only about 18% of riverine plastic. blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2017/11/06/jus… ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics
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