• Founded 2013

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

  • Non-profit foundation

    We are fully reliant on donations from individuals, corporations, governments and institutions.

  • HQ Rotterdam

    The Ocean Cleanup's team consists of more than 150 professionals with different backgrounds and expertise; all bound together to one vision: rid the world's oceans of plastic.

Big problems require big solutions

Every year, hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic enter the oceans, primarily from rivers. And the plastic that’s afloat within the oceans isn’t going away by itself. To effectively solve the problem, we need to both halt the trash flow from rivers, and remove legacy plastics from the oceans at the same time.

The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organization, is developing and scaling technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. Our aim is to put ourselves out of business once the oceans are clean.

Boyan Slat at the Interceptor in Klang river, Malaysia Plastic catch onboard the support vessel, after emptying the retention zone of System 002. The catch is later sorted and put into containers. Conveyor belt with debris in Klang River, Malaysia Motagua River, Guatemala, plastic pollution System03 Full Deployment

We must act on
this global problem

  • Environment

    Plastic pollution in the world's oceans is one of the biggest environmental issues of our time, impacting nearly 900 marine species.

  • Economy

    It is estimated that marine ecosystems provide benefits of up to $50 trillion per year through their ecosystem services (Constanza et al., 2014). Plastic pollution is estimated to reduce the value of these ecosystem services by $500 to $2500 billion per year (Beaumont et al., 2019).

  • 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

At 16 years of age, Boyan Slat saw more plastic bags than fish when scuba diving in Greece. He thought: “Why can’t we just clean this up?” This question led him to research the plastic pollution problem for a school project. He learned about plastic accumulating in five large oceanic gyres, the largest one being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In 2012, Boyan Slat held a TEDx talk about how to rid the world’s oceans of plastic using technology. The video went viral, and the momentum that followed allowed him to drop out of school and found The Ocean Cleanup.

Boyan Slat, founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup

After many years of research, development, testing, and iteration, The Ocean Cleanup now has technologies to intercept plastic in rivers before it reaches the ocean, and technologies to remove the plastic that is already out there—debris that has been building up for decades.

OCEAN SYSTEMS

Plastic, once trapped in a gyre, will slowly break down, continually fragmenting into microplastics. Microplastic debris (< 5mm) is not only more challenging to clean up, but is also easily mistaken for food by marine life. The time to clean up is now.

The ocean garbage patches are massive. To effectively clean an area of such magnitude, a calculated and energy-efficient solution is required. With a relative speed difference maintained between the cleanup system and the plastic, we can concentrate the plastic for extraction. Learn more about our ocean technology and System 03, our current ocean system iteration.

System 03 in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, August 2023
System 03 in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, August 2023

The harvested plastic will be brought back to shore for recycling. We made our very first product – The Ocean Cleanup Sunglasses – using the catch of System 001/B in 2019. Going forward, we do not intend to make our own products, but partner with companies who will use our ocean plastic in their products.

INTERCEPTORS™

1000 rivers, or 1% of the world’s rivers, account for 80% of the plastic flowing into the oceans from land. We have developed a toolkit of Interceptors to tackle these rivers.

Interceptor 002 in Klang River, Malaysia
Interceptor™ 002 in Klang River, Malaysia

Together with corporations, governments and individuals globally, we plan on tackling 1000 of the most polluted rivers with our technology, knowledge, experience, and network.

The Ocean Cleanup is a project; our goal is to reach a 90% reduction of floating ocean plastic by 2040. To see all cleanup systems deployed, visit our Dashboard.

Awards & Recognitions

The impact of cleanup

Research shows the majority of plastic in the gyres (by mass) is made up of larger debris. By removing the plastic while most of it is still large, we prevent it from breaking down into dangerous microplastics.

Our aim is to have removed 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.

We plan to do this by cleaning up the legacy plastic – the plastic already floating in the ocean – and by stopping the sources of plastic flowing into our oceans.

Macroplastic in ocean surface layer.
Macroplastic in ocean surface layer. To clean up the ocean we need to stop new plastic coming in and clean up what is already out there. Lebreton et al (2019).

Leadership

To succeed in its mission, The Ocean Cleanup’s management team relies on a 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
Stacey Santoso Chief Financial Officer
Julian Searle Chief Development Officer
Henk van Dalen Director of Ocean
Joël Jansen Director of QHSE
Marco Piët Rivers Director

Supervisory Board

Bert Bruggeman Chairman
Jaska de Bakker Finance & Governance
Erik Oostwegel Technology and R&D
Chris van der Vorm Communications
Feike Sijbesma Senior Advisor to Supervisory Board
  1. Boyan Slat

    CEO and Founder
  2. Stacey Santoso

    CFO
  3. Martin Stockman

    Director of People and Organization
  4. Henk van Dalen

    Ocean Director
  5. Joël Jansen

    Director of QHSE
  6. Julian Searle

    Chief Development Officer
  7. Dillian van Vliet

    Legal & Public Affairs Counsel
  8. Irina Novikova

    Head of Business Development
  9. Joost Dubois

    Communications Director
  10. Joy Gao

    Finance Director
  11. Laurent Lebreton

    Head of Research
  12. Portrait Leticia

    Letícia Abreu Passos de Souza

    Director of Legal & Public Affairs
  13. Maarten van Berkel

    Director of Data & IT
  14. Matthias Egger

    Director of Environmental and Social Affairs
  15. Monty Simus

    Global Director of Public Affairs, Policy, and Blue Finance
  16. Nisha Bakker

    Director Partnerships
  17. Stella van den Berg

    Valorization Director
  18. Tatjana Scroggie

    Director of Supply Chain
  19. Abigail Nimbalker

    Legal Counsel
  20. Portrait Adrian Moredia Valek

    Adrian Moredia Valek

    Project Manager Sr.
  21. Ahmad Damaj

    Environmental Manager Sr
  22. Alex Mills

    Operations Manager
  23. Alexia Kapsaski

    Legal Counsel
  24. Alice-Catherine Collins

    Director of Project Management
  25. Ana Carrasco

    Paralegal
  26. André Vollering

    Data Scientist
  27. Andriarimina portrait

    Andriarimina Rakotonirina

    Computational Modelling Specialist
  28. Angela

    Angela Osorio

    Head of River Waste Management
  29. Anouk Klapwijk

    Operations Manager
  30. Arjen Tjallema

    Director of Technology - Oceans
  31. Aurelia Ferraro

    Senior Partnership Manager
  32. Bas Maase

    Senior Partnership Manager
  33. Blanca

    Blanca Guillen Cebrian

    Data Analytics Engineer Junior
  34. Bob

    Bob Luijendijk

    Finance Coordinator
  35. Portrait Bobby

    Bobby Leijgraaf

    Operations Manager
  36. Bousso Diakhoumpa

    Community Manager
  37. Briana Disisto

    Social Media Coordinator
  38. Bruno Sainte-Rose

    Lead Computational Modeler
  39. Portrait Caroline

    Caroline Leclerc

    Deputy Head of Rivers
  40. Charlotte de Jong

    Business Development Manager
  41. Charlotte portrait

    Charlotte Harenberg

    P&O Business Partner
  42. Chris Reichard

    Project Manager Senior
  43. Christina Melka

    Legal Assistant
  44. Portrait Coline Trochet

    Coline Trochet

    Logistics Manager Jr
  45. Portrait Cornelis Dingemanse

    Cornelis Dingemanse

    River Surveyor Engineer
  46. Cristina Luttner

    Waste Manager
  47. Dan van der Kooy

    Dan van der Kooy

    Video Producer Sr
  48. David portrait

    David Higgins

    River Surveyor Engineer
  49. Dawn Rottges

    Executive Assistant to Founder and CEO
  50. Débora Fanzeres

    Environmental Manager Jr.
  51. Deborah Koskela

    Lead Hydro Engineer
  52. Dewi van Joost

    People & Organisation Specialist
  53. Don Kemler

    Operations Manager Senior
  54. Dorine Poelhekke

    Business Development Manager
  55. Elina Kasneci portrait

    Elina Kasneci

    AP Coordinator
  56. Enock Namwoyo

    Waste Manager Junior
  57. Erick Ordóñez

    QHSE Manager
  58. Erik Holmbom

    Operations Manager
  59. Erik

    Erik Hoogeveen

    Project Engineer Medior
  60. Erik van den Berg

    Head of Ocean Technology
  61. Erika Träskvik

    Head of Digital Marketing
  62. Esther van Loon

    River Waste Valorization Manager
  63. Eugenia Macari

    Partnership Manager
  64. Eva Potma

    Supply Chain Coordinator
  65. Everest Gromoll

    Marketing Solutions Architect
  66. Ewan Topping

    Marketing Director
  67. Faye Philo

    Head of Analysis and Performance
  68. Fedde Poppenk

    Project Engineer Senior
  69. Federico Moscato

    Logistics Manager
  70. Femke Hoes

    Financial Controller Jr
  71. Florent Beauverd

    Head of Creative and Documentary Productions
  72. Gabriela Alvarez Mieles

    Environmental Manager Sr
  73. Glen Kissack

    Head of Operations
  74. Gosia Winter

    Project Manager
  75. Grégoire Simon

    Project Engineer Junior
  76. Guillermo Barranco van Houtte

    Project Engineer
  77. Helen Wolter

    Field and Lab Scientist
  78. Hidde Coehoorn

    R&D Engineer Rivers
  79. Isabella Ries

    Head of Philanthropy Funding
  80. Portrait Isabelle Cramer

    Isabelle Cramer

    Environmental Man. Jr.
  81. Jacques Coetzee

    Group Controller
  82. Jamie van der Veer

    Legal & Public Affairs Counsel
  83. Janne van Eerten

    Global Public Affairs Manager
  84. Portrait Jari Grob

    Jari Grob

    People Operations Specialist
  85. Jasper van Eijk

    Project Engineer Senior
  86. Jelmer

    Jelmer Bergsma

    Travel Manager
  87. Jessica Ahlborn

    Internal Communications
  88. John Verhoeven

    Recycling Manager
  89. Jolanda Dubois

    AR Coordinator
  90. Júlia Lladós Vila

    Program Coordinator
  91. Juliana Razali

    River Survey Engineer Jr.
  92. Julius Lein

    Offshore Operations Manager
  93. Lars-Christian Boll portrait

    Lars-Christian Boll

    R&D for consistency
  94. Linda portrait

    Linda Upeniece

    P&O Business Partner
  95. Maira Proietti

    Environmental Manager Senior
  96. Portrait Manon

    Manon Ait Amrouche

    Head of Retention system
  97. Marceau Philippe-Janon

    Hydro Engineer
  98. Marco Mazzotta

    Partnership Marketing Associate
  99. Margot Thibault

    Marine Biologist
  100. Marjolein van Vulpen

    Environmental Researcher
  101. Martin Gonzalez Jimenez

    R&D Engineer Senior
  102. Mathieu D’heer

    Data Engineer
  103. Mattia Romero

    Computational Modeler Jr
  104. Portrait Menno de Boer

    Menno de Boer

    Operations Manager
  105. Michael Mascara

    R&D Engineer
  106. Michiel Mos

    Graphic & UX Designer Senior
  107. Portrait Milos Stanojevic

    Milos Stanojevic

    Recycling Operations Manager
  108. Morgane Schmidt

    Program Coordinator
  109. Nadhira Putri

    Waste Manager
  110. Niels Evans

    Talent Manager
  111. Onno van de Sande

    Integrated River Solutions Director
  112. Peter Puskic

    Field Ocean Scientist Sr.
  113. Renata

    Renata Correia

    Head of River Analysis & Performance
  114. Riccardo Farina

    Head of Partnerships Funding
  115. Robin de Vries

    ADIS Lead
  116. Ronja Ebner

    River Data Scientist & Modeler
  117. Portrait Fie Razali

    Roufizah Razali

    Regional Partnership Manager
  118. Saar van Bemmel

    Supply Chain Assistant
  119. Sarah Mahe

    Project Manager - River Deployments
  120. Sean Dalton

    Ocean Imaging System Specialist
  121. Seinab Bohsung portrait

    Seinab Bohsung

    River Survey Engineer Jr
  122. Sinéad O’Flanagan

    Head of Project Management - Rivers
  123. Stephanie Ritchie

    QHSE Associate
  124. Steven Bink

    IT Manager
  125. Sue Brown

    Procurement Manager Sr
  126. Suleman Audu

    Environmental Manager Sr
  127. Tarkessh Mahendran

    Waste Manager Asia
  128. Thaine Herman Assumpcao

    River Survey Engineer
  129. Thomas Mani

    River Plastics Research Lead
  130. Thorson Wegener

    Operations Manager Senior
  131. Tim Farley

    Global Sales Operations Manager
  132. Valerie Verbaan

    Product Manager - Plastic Products
  133. Vasco Correia

    Procurement Senior Manager
  134. Viktória Petrovszki

    Office Manager
  135. Viktorija Gaizutyte

    Head of Social Media
  136. Wessel van Oyen

    River Survey Engineer
  137. Yanis Chontzoglou

    Material Innovation Manager
  138. Yannick Pham

    Computational Modeler

How can you help?

 

  • Donate to our cause

    Your donations empower us to continue our innovative cleanup efforts. Together, we can create a cleaner future for our oceans!

  • Partner with us

    Does your company, organization, or foundation want to be part of the scale-up? Get in touch.

  • Join the crew

    We are always looking for new bright people to join the mission. Be part of a driven group of experts, who see the "impossible" as temporary.