Sustainable Biz - Magazine - Page 27
“Our analysis shows that strategically deploying
Interceptors across just 30 carefully chosen cities
can stop up to a third of river plastic pollution
worldwide. This is the next big leap toward our
ultimate goal of a 90 per cent reduction in global
ocean plastic pollution.”
“Our analysis shows that strategically
deploying Interceptors across just 30
carefully chosen cities can stop up to a third
of river plastic pollution worldwide. This is
the next big leap toward our ultimate goal
of a 90 per cent reduction in global ocean
plastic pollution.”
City-by-city: a faster path to scaling
Using the latest scientific modeling and on
the ground experience, The Ocean Cleanup
identified 30 major plastic polluting coastal
cities which include:
•
Panama City, Panama – First
deployment to go live in the coming
months.
•
Mumbai, India – Mapping of all
waterways completed; preparations for
first deployments underway.
•
Furthermore, the organisation is
developing plans to expand on its
existing work to all polluting rivers in:
•
Manila, Philippines; Montego Bay,
Jamaica; Jakarta, Indonesia; Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia; Bangkok, Thailand
and Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Other cities will be announced once the
necessary partnerships and agreements are
in place. Planning and fundraising activities
are underway for all 30 cities. To realise
these ambitious plans, the organisation is
currently also expanding its engineering
and operational capacity.
Data Driven Restoration at Scale
Before Interceptors are deployed, each city
project begins with an intensive analysis
phase. Aerial drones, AI-powered image
analysis, and GPS-tagged “dummy” plastics
are used to chart every visible waterway
and track how waste moves from streets to
sea. These real-time insights guide optimal
Interceptor placement and provide a public
baseline against which progress can be
measured.
Alongside intercepting new plastic, the
30 Cities Program will also remove debris
from nearby coasts, mangroves, and coral
reefs. This twin-track approach—shutting
off the tap while clearing the legacy
pollution—enables The Ocean Cleanup
to achieve long-term impact, which
includes the restoration of fish nursery
habitats, boosting coastal tourism, and
strengthening of natural storm surge
defences for local communities. Alongside
local partners, the organisation also
advocates for improvements in waste
management and awareness raising
amongst communities.
Completing the first 20 Rivers
While laying the foundation for the 30 Cities
Program, The Ocean Cleanup is also nearing
completion of its first 20 river projects. The
next landmark achievement—expected as
soon as the second half of this year—is in the
western Caribbean, where the team aims to
resolve the plastic pollution problem in the
Gulf of Honduras by intercepting the trash
feeding into this body of water.
A Stepping Stone Toward a 90 Percent
Reduction
The 30 Cities Program represents the first
major scaling step in The Ocean Cleanup’s
journey to eliminate 90 percent of floating
ocean plastic pollution. In parallel, efforts are
continuing to remove plastic from the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch. Whilst extraction
operations are currently on hiatus, work to
deploy cutting edge technologies to map
the “hotspots”, or areas of intense plastic
accumulation, in order to make future
extractions more efficient and economical, is
ongoing.
By combining river interception and coastal
cleanup with its offshore cleanup systems
targeting legacy pollution that’s already in the
ocean, the organisation is charting a path to
turn off the tap and mop up the mess.
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