On October 26th, Ocean Cleanup rolled out their newest invention called The Interceptor, a trash collecting system featuring a conveyor belt attached to a ship.
This machine is designed to collect trash in rivers to prevent it from entering the ocean. As you're currently reading this, Interceptor 003 is currently being tested in Vietnam.
In a recent tweet made by Ocean Cleanup:
"After many months of preparation and some delays, today Interceptor 003 was started up for testing in Vietnam. As with its predecessors, we will evaluate and optimize Interceptor performance during the first weeks, but it is already cleaning the Can Tho river as you read this."
CEO and founder Boyan Slat states their mission at The Ocean Cleanup is to rid the world's oceans of plastic, to achieve this, their strategy starts with removing trash from rivers and waterways that flow into the ocean.
"Every year, over a million tons of plastic pollution enter the world's oceans. Most of it comes from rivers."-Boyan Slat.
Ocean Cleanup recently teamed up with YouTubers Mr.Beast and Mark Rober announcing their latest fundraising campaign, #TeamSeas, to enact a movement.
#TeamSeas aims to motivate global social media creators and fans to create content geared towards cleaning oceans and direct their communities to #TeamSeas to contribute to the initiative.
“Our mission is one of global proportion, therefore it’s crucial that we amplify our message. TeamSeas fits perfectly into our mission to rid the oceans of plastic and we’re honored to be part of this campaign. The donations raised from this campaign will help us implement more Interceptors around the world and curb the flow of riverine plastic into the oceans.”- Boyan Slat.
For every $1 raised, 1lb of trash will be removed from rivers, beaches, or oceans – with the goal of raising $30 million to clean up 30 million pounds of trash.
