The Ocean Cleanup: Secret Side Project
The Ocean Cleanup team has been working tirelessly over the last decade to produce new methods and technologies to rid the world of waste plastic. Their mission is to rid the world’s oceans of 50% of its plastic over the next 5 years and are well on their way to achieving their target.
The Story So Far
After five years of research and design, on the 8th September, The Ocean Cleanup launched its first cleanup system, System 001, into the North Pacific to trial the technology at full scale. System 001 spent four months offshore before it was returned to port for a full analysis of the challenges it encountered.
System 001
System 001’s first journey into the ocean identified two key challenges that the team were faced with; plastic retention and structural integrity. These lessons learned led to the design of System 001/B.
System 001/B
System 001/B was launched in mid-2019. This system was smaller and modular which allowed for offshore adaptations, giving the team more opportunities to find solutions to the problems that System 001 faced.
At the beginning of October 2019, System 001/B’s maiden voyage was deemed a success. It had successfully collected large volumes of ocean plastic, including microplastics as small as 1mm.
After the success of System 001/B, The Ocean Cleanup have now set about scaling up their operations to produce a full fleet of plastic collectors.
A Bit on the Side
For the last four years, while all this has been going on, the Ocean Cleanup has been working on a secret side project which has led to a new breakthrough invention for solving plastic pollution. They plan to unveil the exciting new project with a live video stream in just 4 days time (a the time of writing) on the 26th of October 2019. If you are as excited as we are, you can catch the Livestream announcement on their website, Facebook page or YouTube channel.
Global Office Supplies
Global Office Supplies are proud supporters of The Ocean Cleanup and make regular donations to help them develop their innovative systems that will hopefully, one-day, rid the oceans of all plastic.
You Can Help Too
You too can help The Ocean Cleanup mission by means of a one-off or regular donation or by purchasing some of their merchandise.