education through research, outreach through art
who is plastic ocean project?
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The Plastic Ocean Project Inc. brings the best and brightest leaders together to take on the challenge of removing plastics from our oceans, while creating sustainable businesses in the process. The Plastic Ocean Project has partnered with leaders in...
The Plastic Ocean Project works in tandem with multiple different organizations and resources. Our mission as an organization is to mobilize the efforts of plastic reduction within our community, while also tackling other environmental issues. |
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Fishing4Plastics Initiative
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Our hope is to create a collective community focused on reducing plastic while finding innovation and collaboration around giving value to plastic waste that will in turn encourage the 'mining' of plastics offshore!
Our organization will continue in the pursuit of clean oceans through community involvement, art, sweeps and clean-ups, education, research, policy proposal, and involvement from other collaborators. |
the Plastic Ocean Project has also coordinated efforts to help aid in Hurricane Florence recovery
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The Challenge
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Removing plastics from the ocean is a complex and arduous, but these are not reasons to neglect the issue and here's why. According to Environmental Protection Agency, outside of the small amount of plastics incinerated, every bit of plastic ever manufactured still exist today and is compounding by increasing global production. Every piece of plastic you have ever used is most likely still here somewhere. Up to 80% of marine debris is plastic and comes from runoff, creating a steady stream of plastic into the ocean. In the marine environment, plastics do not biodegrade, they photo-degrade, breaking up from recognizable items of all sizes and shapes into tiny particulates. Challenge is to innovate novel ways to "mine" for plastics, both large and small, remembering the smaller pieces of plastic are the most challenging ones to capture.
Do you eat fish? The broken down pieces are most easily ingested by marine life. If these plastic particles are being consumed by our food source, they too make their way up the food chain into our systems. Our GoalsOur long term goals are to actively and collectively incubate 5 solutions toward the prevention and removal of marine plastics on and off-shore. We are bringing together a community of world leaders focused on innovation, collaboration, education and outreach.
Current initiativesPlastic Ocean Project is involved in numerous outreach initiatives that pull from involvement, scientific research, and education - all backed with a common principle of sustainability. Our initiatives are undertaken by students and scientist conducting research, as well as volunteer work by members of our community.
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"We believe assembling a collaborative team representative of all stakeholders is the key to the success of our mission." - |