Clean World – The Ocean Cleanup

Here at the Clean Skin Club, we’re all about making the world a cleaner place. Our core values lie in creating clean and sustainable skin care products that keep the environment in mind, and now, we have an amazing opportunity of showing the world just how much we care.

We are excited to announce that we’re teaming up with a project called The Ocean Cleanup in which we will be donating 5% of our profits towards the cause, just to show how grateful we are to have this opportunity to give something back. Of course, this also allows our customers to help make the world a cleaner place, one purchase at a time.

 

What exactly is The Ocean Cleanup project?

As a non-profit organization, The Ocean Cleanup develops advanced technologies which are aimed at cleaning up the plastics in the world’s oceans. The organization uses the ocean’s currents to their advantage using a passive drifting system that can clean up half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in just five years.

Who is behind The Ocean Cleanup?

The Ocean Cleanup was founded by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat. Slat developed the idea at the age of 18 back in 2013, in his hometown of Delft, in the Netherlands. Today, The Ocean Cleanup has a team that consists of more than 70 engineers, researchers, scientists, and computer modellers that all work together to help rid the world’s oceans of its plastic. With the help of companies such as The Clean Skin Club, The Ocean Cleanup is gaining popularity and funding by the day.

The problem we’re all facing

Located between Hawaii and California, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest collection of waste materials in our oceans today, but there are four other major sites where human waste collects in the oceans. It is estimated that there is currently over 5 trillion pieces of plastic litter in our oceans, and if left to circulate, it will impact not only our ecosystems but our health and economies as well. As a non-profit organization, The Ocean Cleanup aims to close the source of pollution as well as cleaning up what has already been accumulated in the ocean.

The ocean currents concentrate plastic litter in five areas around the world. These are referred to as the subtropical gyres or ocean garbage patches. The pollution spreads across millions of kilometres, spreading far and wide. And while the idea of covering these areas with vessels and nets sounds like a solution, it would take way too long before we see real results.

 

How The Ocean Cleanup aims to solve the problem

The Ocean Cleanup has developed a passive system that relies on natural oceanic forces (a.k.a the currents) to help concentrate the plastic litter. Their unique system is propelled by the wind and waves, with a floater located just above the water surface. Since the plastics are primarily located just beneath it, the system moves faster than the plastic, which allows the plastic litter to be captured.

The system works in much the same way as plastic floating in the ocean. It causes the plastics to gravitate towards the garbage patches, where it is then collected. The more systems they put into action, the more plastic can be collected.

 

What happens to the collected junk?

The Ocean Cleanup does more than just clean up the world’s oceans. Yes, they have developed cutting-edge tech to help clean up the world’s oceans, but they have also been working hard on figuring out how to reuse what we all see as junk. According to research from The Ocean Cleanup, the ocean plastics can actually be recycled and turned into high-quality products once collected from the oceans. The Ocean Cleanup aims to make the cleanup self-sustainable since they will be selling their branded, recycled plastic materials for reuse within a vast amount of industries. Just imagine a world where our phones, lounge suites, car bumpers, or even our sunglasses are manufactured from recycled materials that once threatened the health of our oceans!

What is the impact of The Ocean Cleanup tech?

The Ocean Cleanup uses tech that relies on algorithms that specify optimal deployment locations for their systems. After these locations have been established, their cleanup systems roam the gyres autonomously. Thanks to real-time telemetry, The Ocean Cleanup can monitor the condition, performance, and trajectory of each system currently in use.

 

Because their systems rely on natural ocean currents for operation, they don’t need external energy sources to catch and concentrate plastic littler. Their electronic systems are also powered by solar energy, which means that these systems are 100% energy neutral.

 

Since the project is gradually adding systems to the gyre, there is no need for full-financing upfront. Their gradual scale-up also allows them to continuously learn from the field and improve their tech if and where needed.

 

Thanks to the advanced systems in place, The Ocean Cleanup aims to remove plastics from the oceans while they are still reasonably sized. This eliminated the risk of the plastic litter breaking down to microscopic size, where it can potentially cause even more damage to our ecosystems. Combined with source reduction of plastic waste on land, our oceans can be plastic-free by 2050.

 

We’re honored to have the opportunity of contributing towards this impeccable project, and we hope that our customers feel privileged to have the opportunity of giving back as well. By donating 5% of our profits, we’re helping to save the world, one clean purchase at a time!