Research

Research

Mission One Environmental Monitoring Results Available

The Ocean Cleanup is developing advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. The passive drifting system, also known as System 001 or “Wilson”, was deployed in the Great…

Research

Whales likely impacted by Great Pacific Garbage Patch

A scientific note we published on April 09, 2019 reports the records of whales within the world’s largest accumulation of floating ocean plastic: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Over the…

Oceanography, Research

Where Mismanaged Plastic Waste is Generated and Possible Paths of Change

As we kick off 2019, the engineering team is working towards solutions to the challenges we face with System 001, while the research team remains focused on the study of…

Oceanography, Research

Chasing Plastics: How to Close the Ocean Plastic Mass Balance

At The Ocean Cleanup we believe that you cannot solve a problem if you do not fully understand it. For this reason, we have put extensive efforts into fundamental plastic…

Research

Remote Sensing of Ocean Plastics

Today, our results on the analysis of hyperspectral imagery collected during our 2016 Aerial Expedition above the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) were published in the scientific journal Environmental Science…

General, Oceanography, Research

The Exponential Increase of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

After three years of research including two field expeditions, extensive laboratory experiments and data analyses, we are thrilled to finally release the results of our study on the infamous Great…

Oceanography, Research

How Ocean Plastics Turn into a Dangerous Meal

Our research team has just published a new article in the journal Environmental Science and Technology revealing that plastics within the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are loaded with pollutants at…

Oceanography, Research

Investigating Plastic Detection from Space

After almost 3 years of work, The Ocean Cleanup research team has recently submitted its comprehensive results about plastic pollution in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. More than 1.2 million pieces…

Research, Team

Dr. Richard Spinrad Joins The Ocean Cleanup’s Scientific Advisory Board

The Ocean Cleanup is honored to welcome former NOAA Chief Scientist Dr. Richard (Rick) Spinrad as the newest member of our Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).

Research

Quantifying global plastic inputs from rivers into oceans

Quantifying plastic pollution in the world’s ocean requires a good understanding of sources. It is commonly accepted that most plastic found in or near the marine environment is coming from…