The Ocean Cleanup is a nonprofit group that works on environmental engineering projects in the Netherlands. It creates and uses technology to remove plastic waste from oceans and to catch it in rivers before it reaches the ocean. The group first focused on the Pacific Ocean and its garbage patch, and later expanded to rivers in countries like Indonesia, Guatemala, and the United States.
The Ocean Cleanup was started in 2013 by Boyan Slat, a Dutch inventor who is its leader. The group designs systems for both oceans and rivers. Its ocean system uses a funnel-shaped floating barrier that is pulled by two ships. This system is placed in circular ocean currents to collect ocean trash. The group plans to use 10 or more systems, each about 2 kilometers long (1.2 miles), which they believe could remove half of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within five years of being placed.
The river system uses floating barriers and other tools that are fixed in rivers or at river mouths. The Ocean Cleanup also writes scientific reports and estimates that about 1,000 rivers, which make up 1% of all rivers, carry 80% of the pollution in the world's oceans. The group plans to install its river systems in these 1,000 rivers.
As of January 2026, the group has removed more than 50 million kilograms (50,000 metric tons) of trash from rivers and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
History
In 2012, Slat introduced a cleanup project and system to remove plastic from the ocean. In October of that year, he explained the idea during a TED Talk. The first design used long, floating barriers attached to the ocean floor and connected to a central platform shaped like a manta ray for stability. These barriers would guide plastic toward the platform, which would collect it from the water. Slat did not mention the size of this system in the talk.
In 2014, the design changed. The central platform was replaced with a separate tower not connected to the barriers. This tower would collect plastic using a conveyor belt. The floating barrier was planned to be 100 km (62 mi) long. A study was conducted and published to check if the plan could work.
In 2015, this design won the London Design Museum’s Design of the Year award and the INDEX: Award. Later that year, scale models were tested in wave pools at Deltares and MARIN to study how the barrier would behave in ocean conditions and to gather data for computer modeling.
In 2016, a 100-meter (330 ft) section of the system was tested in the North Sea. The test showed that traditional oil containment booms would not last long, so the material for the floating barrier was changed to a hard-walled HDPE pipe.
In May 2017, major changes to the design were made:
– The system’s length was reduced from 100 km (62 mi) to 2 km (1.2 mi), with plans to use 60 systems together.
– Anchors attached to the ocean floor were replaced with sea anchors that would allow the system to drift with ocean currents. This helped the system move to areas with high plastic concentrations. The lines to the anchors kept the system in a U-shape.
– A system that automatically collected plastic was replaced with one that concentrated the plastic before support vessels removed it.
Tests in 2018 led to the removal of sea anchors. The opening of the U-shape was adjusted to face the direction of ocean currents by adding a deeper underwater screen to increase drag.
On September 9, 2018, System 001 (called Wilson, after a floating volleyball from the movie Cast Away) was deployed from San Francisco. A ship named Maersk Launcher towed the system to a location 240 nautical miles from the coast, where it underwent sea trials. The system had a 600 m (2,000 ft) long barrier with a 3 m (9.8 ft) wide skirt beneath it. It was made from HDPE and consisted of 50×12 m sections joined together. It was unmanned and used solar-powered systems for monitoring, navigation, and communication, including GPS, cameras, lanterns, and AIS. The barrier and screen were produced by an Austrian supplier.
In October 2018, the system was towed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for real-world testing. It faced challenges retaining collected plastic because the barrier did not maintain a consistent speed in the water. In December, mechanical stress caused an 18-meter section to break off, and the system was moved to Hawaii for repairs. Over two months of operation, it collected 2 metric tons of plastic.
In June 2019, after four months of analysis and redesign, System 001/B was deployed. It included a water-borne parachute to slow the system and an extended cork line to secure the screen. This design captured smaller plastic, reduced the barrier size by two-thirds, and was easier to adjust at sea. However, it still struggled to retain debris effectively.
In October 2019, The Ocean Cleanup introduced a river cleanup barrier called The Interceptor. Two systems were deployed in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Klang, Malaysia.
In January 2020, flooding damaged the barrier of Interceptor 001 in Jakarta. It was replaced with a newer model featuring a stronger screen, simpler design, and an adjustable weak link. A third Interceptor was deployed in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In December, The Ocean Cleanup announced plans to mass-produce the Interceptor series.
In July 2022, an Interceptor Original was deployed near the mouth of Ballona Creek in Los Angeles, California. This was the first Interceptor Original in the United States and the second globally.
In May 2022, The Ocean Cleanup tested a new Interceptor called Trashfence on the Rio Las Vacas in Guatemala. It was anchored to the riverbed, but the anchors washed away. In April 2023, they returned with two new Interceptors at a location with slower currents, anchored to the riverbank. This site became highly successful, removing 10,000,000 kg of trash in its first year.
In July 2021, a new system called System 002 (also known as "Jenny") was deployed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Unlike System 001, which drifted passively, System 002 was actively towed by two ships. In October 2021, the project reported that the system had collected 28,000 kg (62,000 lb) of trash. In October, the project announced plans for System 03, which would be up to 2.5 km (1.6 mi) long.
By December 2021, the project reported removing more than 150 tonnes of plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and announced a transition to the longer System 03 in the following year.
In May 2023, the project deployed System 03, a 2,250-meter-long barrier. The system included a retention zone where collected material was held before removal. The mesh size of the nets in this zone was increased from 10 to 15 mm to allow marine life, such as fish and turtles, to escape and smaller creatures, like blue buttons and violet snails, to pass through.
System 03 has about five times the capacity of System 002, which is why the naming scheme dropped a "0."
In June 2024, the project reported removing 15 million kilograms (33 million lb) of marine trash from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and key poll
Design
The 03 design uses a floating structure that is pulled through the water. This structure acts as a barrier to contain floating debris. A screen beneath the float allows water to pass through but traps debris below the surface, directing it into the Retention Zone. This area collects debris and is watched by underwater cameras. If an animal is seen in the Retention Zone, the Marine Animal Safety Hatch (MASH) opens, blocking further entry while creating a path for the animal to leave safely.
Crewed boats pull the U-shaped barrier, which is about 2.2 kilometers long, through the water at a speed of 1.5 knots. The boat is guided to areas with more waste. By August 2025, the floating system had collected nearly 500,000 kilograms of plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The Interceptor Barricade is a solar-powered system that automatically captures waste. A barrier and water flow path direct debris toward the opening of the Interceptor, where a conveyor belt moves the waste to a shuttle. The shuttle sends the waste into one of six bins based on sensor readings. When the bins are nearly full, local workers receive an automatic message and empty the bins, sending the waste to nearby recycling centers. The Interceptor project is similar to a smaller project called Mr. Trash Wheel, which was created in 2008 for Maryland’s Baltimore Harbor.
Research
In August 2015, The Ocean Cleanup carried out the Mega Expedition. This expedition used about 30 ships, including the lead ship R/V Ocean Starr, to cross the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and map an area of 3.5 million square kilometers. The team collected information about the size, amount, and total weight of plastic in the patch. According to the organization, this expedition gathered more data about ocean plastic pollution than all previous studies combined over the past 40 years.
In September and October 2016, The Ocean Cleanup launched the Aerial Expedition. A C-130 Hercules aircraft conducted the first series of aerial surveys to map the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The goal was to measure the amount of large debris, such as ghost nets, in the patch. Slat stated that the crew observed more debris than expected.
The project released an app called The Ocean Cleanup Survey App, which allows others to search for plastic in the ocean and report their findings.
In February 2015, the research team published a study in Biogeosciences about how plastic is spread at different depths in the North Atlantic Gyre. They found that plastic is most concentrated at the ocean’s surface and decreases rapidly as depth increases, reaching nearly zero just a few meters below the surface. A follow-up study was published in Scientific Reports in October 2016.
In June 2017, researchers published a paper in Nature Communications with a model showing how much plastic from rivers enters the ocean. Their model estimates that between 1.15 and 2.41 million metric tons of plastic enter the world’s oceans yearly, with 86% coming from rivers in Asia. In December 2017, they published a paper in Environmental Science & Technology about pollutants found in ocean plastic they had collected.
In March 2018, they published a paper in Scientific Reports summarizing findings from two expeditions. They estimated that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch contains 1.8 trillion pieces of floating plastic, with a total weight of 79,000 metric tons. Microplastics, which are smaller than 0.5 cm, make up 94% of the pieces but only 8% of the total weight. The study suggests that the amount of plastic in the patch has grown rapidly since 1970.
In September 2019, they published a paper in Scientific Reports exploring why ocean plastic emissions are higher than the amount of debris found at the ocean’s surface. The study explains that the movement of debris over time accounts for the difference and suggests that most current microplastics come from plastic produced in the 1990s or earlier. A follow-up study in May 2020 showed that some plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is breaking down into microplastics and sinking to the deep sea. Most debris remains at the surface, with 90% found in the top 5 meters.
In October 2019, other researchers estimated that most ocean plastic pollution comes from cargo ships, with a large portion from Chinese cargo ships.
Funding
In 2014, The Ocean Cleanup collected more than US$2 million through a crowdfunding campaign.
By 2019, the organization was mostly supported by donations and contributions from companies and individuals, including Maersk, Salesforce.com’s chief executive Marc Benioff, Peter Thiel, Julius Baer Foundation, The Coca-Cola Company, and Royal DSM.
In 2019, it received a 10 million AUD award from the Macquarie Group Foundation as part of the foundation’s 50th anniversary celebration.
In October 2020, The Ocean Cleanup introduced sunglasses made from plastic collected from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The product was designed to help fund cleanup efforts. A total of 21,000 sunglasses were produced and sold for €200 each. The plastic used in the sunglasses was verified to come from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch through a certification developed with DNV GL. The sunglasses were designed by Yves Béhar and manufactured by Safilo. All units sold out by early 2022.
In October 2021, The Ocean Cleanup participated in the #TeamSeas fundraising campaign led by YouTube creators Mark Rober and MrBeast. The organization received about half of the $30 million raised during the campaign.
In 2022, Kia signed a seven-year partnership with The Ocean Cleanup. The agreement includes financial support and in-kind contributions. The partnership will fund the construction of a new Interceptor and allow recycled plastics from the cleanup to be used in Kia’s manufacturing processes.
In early 2023, The Ocean Cleanup received its largest private donation to date, $25 million, from Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb.
In 2026, The Ocean Cleanup was named one of The Audacious Project’s 2025 grantees. The organization received its largest single donation to date, $121 million, from The Audacious Project’s donor pool. The funds will support the implementation of their 30 Cities Program.
Efficacy issues and possible negative impacts
Scientists have raised questions about the methods, how practical they are, how efficient they are, and whether they are worth the cost. Miriam Goldstein, director of ocean policy at the Center for American Progress, said in 2019 that devices placed near the shore are easier to repair and may collect more plastic for each dollar spent compared to devices farther out at sea.
The team has shared worries that these devices might harm sea life, such as neustons, pleustons, Portuguese man-of-war, sea snails, and sail jellyfish that live near the ocean surface. They have watched for these effects. A study using computer models found that it is not possible to know how harmful removing plastic from the ocean (like the methods used by The Ocean Cleanup) might be for marine life. The possible effects could range from small to very serious.
It is clear that this method alone cannot fix the entire problem. Plastic in the oceans is found far beyond the large floating trash areas called gyres. Experts believe that less than 5% of all plastic that enters the oceans ends up in these garbage patches. Most of the plastic waste instead ends up on coastlines and beaches.
Recognition
The project and its founder have been honored in many places.
- 2014 Champion of the Earth – United Nations Environment Programme
- One of the 20 Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs Worldwide – Intel EYE50
- 2015 London Design Museum Design of the Year
- 2015 INDEX: Award
- 2015 Fast Company Innovation by Design Award – Social Good category
- 2015 100 Global Thinkers – Foreign Policy
- 2016 Katerva Award
- 2017 Norwegian Shipowners' Association Thor Heyerdahl Award
- 2019 Macquarie 50th Anniversary Award
- 2020 Dutch Design Awards
- 2024 Time100 Climate