Welcome everyone on this beautiful sunny day in Vancouver, British Columbia
so we are here today to commemorate the end of the first mission
of The Ocean Cleanup in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
as well as looking ahead on what's coming up for the cleanup as well as for
the first plastic that we have collected.
At The Ocean Cleanup, our mission is
to rid the world's oceans of plastic. And to do that we really need to do two things:
we need to prevent more plastic from reaching the oceans
but we also need to clean up what's allready in the oceans
And of course, we're working on the prevention side
We've developed these Interceptors that we just launched a month ago
to catch plastic in rivers before it reaches the oceans
But that's not enough to rid the worlds oceans of plastic.
To success in that you also to deal with the legacy pollution which is already in the oceans today
By far the largest accumulation of trash in the world's oceans
is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
which is out there between here and Hawaii
it's twice the size of Texas
contains a hundred million kilos of plastic
and not only does it not go away by itself
it gets more harmful over time because it breaks down
into these smaller and smaller micro plastics
which can then end up in in the food chain
so we have to clean this up
but you might wonder
well it's it's 20 years ago that this patch was discovered
why hasn't anyone claimed this yet?
Well it turns out that actually pretty difficult to do it
It's obviously very far away this area is huge
and it's it's one of the roughest environments in the face of the planet
we're talking about waves up to 14 meters in height
Wind, currents... it's all such a destructive environment.
So doing anything out there it's just really difficult.
But after years of research and development
in September of last year
we felt ready to try and launch our first cleanup system
towards the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
which we launched from San Francisco that year
This was a critical milestone, yet it wasn't a celebration
because we knew that it was still very much an experimental system
there was no guarantee that it would actually work
I think I gave it 30 or 40 percent chance of actually working the first time around
And indeed our our expectations were proven right
We had our ups and downs we had problems we had structural failures
but eventually, the team was able to take those lessons into account
and actually get to a point that we had a system that was successfully catching plastic two months ago
So that was quite an amazing moment. Especially after all these things that we went through
And of course around me we see the sort of the combination of those efforts
And seeing this makes me incredibly proud
of what the the team has done over the past years
so a huge tanks to everyone who has been involved
and for getting us to this point that we actually have the first plastic
back on land, which fills me with a lot of pride and joy
But then of course, we succeeded in catching plastic
but we're not ready yet to clean up the whole Garbage Patch
So as you know, the objective is to clean up 50% of the Garbage Patch in five years
And for that we want to build a whole fleet of systems
that are bigger more efficient
and before we can actually deploy that fleet
we have this essential stepping stone to still fulfil which we call system number 002
Which is going to be the first, full-scale, fully operational cleanup system
We are actually starting with the development of that right now
so as mentioned we now have a system that is catching plastic
but there is still a few things that we need to do
where there's still innovation required
before we can actually clean the ocean
which includes a long term durability and long term retention
so being able to retain the plastic for very long periods of time
Those are the two main engineering challenges that we will be working on for the coming year
As we prepare for the launch of system number 002
But it's important to realize that for this cleanup to be succesfull
it's not just a technical challenge
There is also this other side of the equation which is the the financial challenge
You might have a technology that works well
but if there is pay for it it's still not going to happen
Ideally you have some kind of model through which, once the systems are out there
and the cleanup can continue to pay for itself
I mean, that would just be the perfect full circle
We're also doing this work on on the rivers and there the situation is very different
because a river is actually owned by someone
It's in national territories
there's somebody who has an incentive to keep that river clean
So there's actually this business case to do this
But for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that's not the case
that's why critics have always pointed out
that even if you have a technology to do it
it's not going to happen because it's international waters
so it's no one's problem
But we disagree. Because we believe that this is everyone's problem
so everyone could be part of the solution as well
Over the past few years we've come we've come up with a plan
through which we believe we can actually do this
And I'll explain it by answering the two most commonly asked questions
The first question is: What are you going to do with the plastic?
It's important to stress that the objective of this first campaign wasn't to maximize our harvest
It was really just to get to a point that we have a system that's catching plastic
really validating the fundamental principles behind the concept
Yet, by doing that we inevitably also collected some plastic
partly by the system partly by the crew next to it
on the boat that was monitoring the cleanup system
So we have 60 big bags of one cubic meter around me here with filled with catch
and if you look inside of them you see it's absolute garbage I mean this
this stuff has been in the ocean, likely for decades
It's corroded, it's degraded, it has salt on it, it has algae on it. It's really complete garbage
Yet, we believe that these bags hold the key to making the cleanup self-sustaining
Because this is not just any plastic this is plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
It's like the difference between a normal rock and a rock from the moon
It's plastic that has a story attached to it
And not just that, it has a purpose behind it
because now that it's out there are out of the ocean
it won't continue to kill sea life or for another decades or centuries
So what we're going to do is we're going to recycle this plastic
And we're going to turn it into beautiful sustainable products
completely made from this plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
And one hundred percent of the proceeds will go to the continuation
of the cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
These are not going to be gimmicks. These are going to be products that you actually want
And we're going to try this out with the first plastic that we have here right now, in the coming year
To see if this is something that can work
because, this is something that has never been done before
this will be the first products ever made from plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
So, success is not guaranteed
With the quality of this material it's surely going to be a challenge
Yet, because of the research that we've been doing over the past few years
we believe that this should actually be possible
Now you might say: 'wait a minute, aren't there already a lot of products made from ocean plastic?'
For that it's important to realize that right now there's no real standard.
no hard definition of what ocean plastic means
It's really kind of this murky definition which could mean 100% plastic from the ocean
or 1% plastic from the ocean
and it's even possible that none of the plastic came from the ocean at all
it's quite quite crazy
We believe that it's important to bring transparency to the market
We've been collaborating with the world's leading certification body: DNV GL
To set up a public standard
Which would be able to certify plastic that is actually coming out of the ocean
And they will be sharing a bit more information on that in a bit
So what they've done: they've been following every step of this plastic
from the moment it was collected from the ocean
and will continue to do so when the plastic is being sorted
when it's being recycled all the way to the plastic being this beautiful sustainable product
which brings us to the second most frequently asked question that we received
'How can I help? How can I be part of this cleanup?'
Now the fact, of course, is that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is really far away
You can't just go out there and collect some plastic yourself
So through this plastic, through these products
we hope to give everyone the opportunity to be part of the cleanup
the aim is to to launch the first product in in September of next year
but we already want to give our supporters is the opportunity
to join the journey of this plastic today.
so if you go to our website: products.theoceancleanup.com
you can actually sign up for 50 bucks
And you can follow the journey of the plastic
as well as be the first in line for when that product is actually being launched
And of course, because we're nonprofit
a hundred percent of the proceeds would already go to the mission
and with this we hope to give everyone the opportunity
to join us in turning this problem into a solution
Once again, thanks to everyone who's been part of the journey so far
It's been a crazy six years
and I'm so happy that we finally have this first plastic back on shore
so thanks everyone who got us to this point
and I hope you'll be joining us in in being part of the next chapter of The Ocean Cleanup as well
thank you