Towards Harmonized Assessment of Plastic Pollution: Insights from Large-Scale Cleanup Operations

The Ocean Cleanup is an international non-profit dedicated to eliminating floating plastic pollution from the world’s oceans. Through a dual approach—intercepting plastic in rivers to prevent new inflow and removing accumulated waste from the ocean—the organization aims to address both immediate and long-term challenges of plastic pollution. The Ocean Cleanup Science & Technology Programme, recognized as an official UN Decade of Ocean Science action, seeks to bridge the gap between the realities of plastic pollution and policy development by integrating remediation, monitoring, and scientific research to drive effective policy action. 

As of November 2024, The Ocean Cleanup has removed over 3.6 million kilograms of plastic waste from aquatic ecosystems worldwide, with projects extending from the North Pacific subtropical gyre to rivers across Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guatemala, and the USA. This presentation will explore insights and challenges encountered in data collection on intercepted waste across these locations, illustrating how systematic catch bookkeeping and detailed compositional analysis, conducted according to international waste characterization protocols, provide critical tools for tracking pollution trends globally. 

A global network of interceptors and plastic removal systems is essential not only for pollution remediation but also to support policy by offering a quantitative basis for measuring the accountability and effectiveness of a new international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution.