Research

Research

Predicting the Future of Plastic Pollution and Why Cleanup is Part of the Solution

Plastic pollution continues to have a global impact on our ecosystems, health, and economies. Because of the scale of the issue, there is still much to learn about the impacts of plastic pollution. Therefore, research is crucial when developing solutions. To that end, we must…

Research

Great Pacific Garbage Patch Slowly Breaks Down Into Microplastics to Pollute the Deep Sea

In our mission to rid the world’s oceans of plastic we rely on a thorough understanding of the ocean plastic pollution problem. To this end, our researchers have found that…

General, Oceanography, Research, Science

The Quest to Find the Missing Plastic

For the last five years, researchers at The Ocean Cleanup have been working to understand the scope of ocean plastic pollution in order to help the organization effectively design technology…

Environment, 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…

Environment, 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…

Environment, Research

Environmental Impact Assessment Available

With the thorough analysis performed by independent environmental consultancy CSA Ocean Sciences now complete, The Ocean Cleanup has issued the results of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for System 001.…

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…