Catching Up with The Ocean Cleanup

This month, we sit down with Tarkessh Mahendran, our Waste Manager in Malaysia, to discuss the vibe in our Kuala Lumpur regional office and the importance of having a team on the ground, physically located in Southeast Asia. Tarkessh speaks about cultural differences between working in Malaysia and Rotterdam, such as the subtler communication styles in Asia compared to more direct approaches in Europe.

He also gives an update on the new sorting center being built on the Klang River to improve plastic recycling, and what this will mean for the future of our Interceptor projects on the Klang.

This month's podcast is from the remote and windy shore of the Rio Motagua. Robert Leijgraaf, aka Bobby, Project Engineer at The Ocean Cleanup, sits with our host, Dan van der Kooy, in the fishing village of El Quetzalito, Guatemala.

We're about to deploy the second Interceptor Solution in Guatemala. Bobby talks about the need for another Interceptor Barricade at the end of the Rio Motagua and what we learned from the first project in the country. Interceptor Barricade XL will be about 300km upstream from the first Interceptor Barricade. If it all goes well, the combined impact of the two deployments will stop river pollution right before it enters the Caribbean Sea.

Learn more about our new deployment here.

Not everyone who dedicates their life to dirty oceans and rivers comes from somewhere close to a body of water. Matthias Egger, Head of Environmental and Social Affairs, hails from the Swiss mountains and dedicates his life to the science of making oceans and rivers cleaner for marine life and humans in the future.

He discusses how we help local communities by addressing global problems through a holistic but specific lens. While solving pollution on a small scale and changing people's lives, we work on global solutions. We use the data from river deployments in various countries to develop a blueprint for the future by writing Environmental and Social Impact Assessments. This way, we mitigate risks, monitor our actions to create a larger impact on the world, publish research, and strive to make upstream changes. For example, Matthias shares his experience at the INC negotiations, where over 160 countries work on the first international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution.

He also talks about his personal experiences throughout his six years working for The Ocean Cleanup and what this means to him as a father.

Learn more about how we contribute to environmental and social impact here: https://theoceancleanup.com/environmental-and-social-impact/

It’s ‘Bring Your Kids To Work Day’ at The Ocean Cleanup HQ!

Your host, Dan van der Kooy, has traveled the world braving all kinds of hazardous environments to bring you the stories of our mission. But is he ready for his toughest test yet?

We’re not just ridding the oceans of plastic for today: we’re doing it for the next generation, too - and they have some thoughts!

Here, children of crew members tell Dan how proud they are of their parent’s work at The Ocean Cleanup, why it’s so essential to protect fish and other animals in the oceans, and how they want to help other kids all over the world: as Milly puts it, ‘we should all help and make this a better place.’

All of us at The Ocean Cleanup say a huge thank you to Emma, Theo, Milly, Suvie, Harvey, Quentin, Noah, Jacob, Aurelia, Rex, Rafael, Flip and Amy for their fantastic appearances - some in their second language - in this special episode!

To see how we’re cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, see here: https://theoceancleanup.com/oceans/

Most ocean plastic comes from rivers: see how we’re deploying Interceptors in the world’s most polluting rivers here: https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/

We recently announced our first official partner product with Coldplay - check out the Notebook Edition LP of their new album ‘Moon Music’ containing 70% recycled river plastic intercepted in Guatemala - see how we did it here: https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/the-ocean-cleanup-and-coldplay-announce-lp-made-using-plastic-intercepted-in-guatemala/

Not all lawyers stay in the office or the courtroom. Letícia Abreu Passos de Souza grew up seeing the damage caused by pollution in her native Brazil - and now she’s using the law to do something about it.

As Director of Legal and Public Affairs at The Ocean Cleanup, Letícia guides our crew through different laws and rules in countries around the world - as well as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. She tells Catching Up how understanding local laws helps us work with local authorities in the best way and makes our Interceptor deployments more efficient - helping us catch plastic faster and with greater impact.

Letícia tells us the importance of having ‘boots on the ground’ to truly understand how the law can help tackle plastic pollution in a local community, and shares her hopes for a new world effort to solve the problem through a Global Plastics Treaty.

Learn more on how we contribute to law and public policy here: https://theoceancleanup.com/global-public-affairs/

See our blogpost on cleanup and the Global Plastics Treaty here: https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/global-plastics-treaty-why-legacy-plastic-cleanup-is-essential/

We're in Bangkok, Thailand, where Interceptor 019 has been deployed as our first step in cleaning the Chao Phraya - one of the world's busiest rivers.

Charlotte de Jong, Business Development Manager at The Ocean Cleanup, has spent years preparing for this moment, collaborating with dozens of partners, and facing the challenges of placing an Interceptor in a prime central location in one of the world's great cities.

Catching Up hears how Charlotte has worked together with Thai administrators, volunteers, and businesses to ensure Interceptor 019 has maximum impact and visibility for Bangkok's residents and how our technology and expertise require local expertise and ownership to complete our mission of ridding the oceans of plastic.

Read more about Interceptor 019 in Bangkok here: https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/bangkok-begins-the-ocean-cleanups-interceptor-019-comes-to-thailand/

Find out how we're intercepting plastic in the world's most polluting rivers here: https://theoceancleanup.com/rivers/

How do we clean the oceans? With a little help from our friends, of course - and Ewan Topping, Senior Partnership Manager at The Ocean Cleanup, is the man who helps us find them. Hundreds of organizations collaborate with The Ocean Cleanup, and Ewan tells us the key to attracting the right support: identify a shared problem and find partners motivated to solve it.

But it's not all about big organizations - many of you, our listeners, support The Ocean Cleanup each month. Ewan tells us how this is now easier than ever with our new fundraising platform, ready for anyone around the world to help us rid the oceans of plastic.

Does your organization want to help rid the oceans of plastic? Read on: https://theoceancleanup.com/partners-and-funders/

Want to make an impact? Start fundraising for The Ocean Cleanup here: https://fund.theoceancleanup.com/

The Ocean Cleanup is heading back to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with System 03, so Catching Up speaks to Senior Offshore Representative Grete Ernst ahead of her latest trip to the Pacific Ocean.

Grete has front-row seats for the largest cleanup in history and shares her excitement at heading out once more. But Grete has many tales to tell from her time offshore, and she reveals what life is really like with the same crew for weeks on end, with land nearly a week’s journey away - as she says, almost like a different planet.

In such a key year for our oceans, Grete tells us how she'll be helping us optimize System 03 following its winter upgrades to make us even more impactful and efficient in cleaning plastic. From the Global Plastics Treaty to the importance of creative thinking in engineering, Grete gives us the full picture of cleaning the ocean - from up close.

It’s not just about plastic - it’s about people, too.

Suleman Audu, Environmental Manager at The Ocean Cleanup, takes us from his schoolboy Environmental Club days back in Nigeria to his vital role in our mission: making sure our river deployments bring the right benefits for the people living alongside them.

Every river is unique - and so is every riverside community, particularly when the river is vital for local needs. Suleman explains how he and his colleagues work to understand plastic pollution from the local’s point of view - and use our deployments to help them to solve it.

Suleman also speaks to the power of empathy, how his experiences help him connect with our stakeholders and listen to what matters to them, and his pride and passion in joining our mission to rid the oceans of plastic.

It’s been a stellar year for The Ocean Cleanup. New deployments, global negotiations, and an incredible global catch total of over 8 million kg (almost 18 million lb!) of trash removed from oceans and rivers worldwide.

So as a special holiday gift, Catching Up is serving a selection of 2023 highlights from our chats with crew members (and special guests) this year - curated and presented by your always-festive host, Dan van der Kooy.

From the entire crew of The Ocean Cleanup, we thank you for listening and coming with us on this mission to rid the oceans of plastic. We wish each of you a very happy new year, and we can’t wait to share 2024 with you - so make sure you’re subscribed.

You can donate to help clean our oceans - join us at theoceancleanup.com/donate