Over the past seven decades, global plastic production has grown dramatically. In 1950, annual production amounted to approximately two million tonnes, whereas today it exceeds 450 million tonnes [1]. This quantity is comparable to the combined weight of the world’s human population, and is projected to grow [2].

Plastic packaging truly exemplifies the characteristics of the linear economy: fossil-based, single-use, short-lived, with very low recycling rates and high rates of mismanaged waste [3]. Current estimates suggest that only around 9% of plastic waste is effectively recycled, and approximately 19% is incinerated. Nearly half is sent to sanitary landfills, while the remainder is either dumped in landfills, openly burned, or released into the natural environment [4]. 

Only 0.5% of the yearly plastic production eventually ends up in the ocean. That might seem marginal, but the ocean plastic pollution problem is not small at all. Over 1 million metric tons is still a massive amount of pollution [5]. In fact, academics claim that plastic pollution in the marine environment is “nearing planetary boundary threat conditions” [6].

The accumulation of floating plastics in the marine environment is particularly concerning due to their widespread distribution across the ocean surface. In addition to facilitating the transport of invasive species, plastic debris can threaten vulnerable habitats and negatively affect communities that depend on healthy marine ecosystems. Plastic pollution can harm marine life through ingestion and entanglement, while microplastics and associated pollutants enter and accumulate in the food chain [6].

In a business-as-usual scenario, the total mass of plastic will exceed the biomass of fish in the ocean by 2050. Reducing production through regulation, alongside improved waste management and circular solutions, is essential to limit both new plastic flows and environmental leakage [7]. 

However, these measures won’t affect the plastic that has already accumulated in the ocean over decades, also called “legacy pollution”. While part of this material may return to coastlines and can be addressed through coastal cleanups, large accumulations in remote ocean currents, such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), will require targeted and sustained cleanup efforts [7].

One prominent initiative tackling this challenge is The Ocean Cleanup (TOC), a Netherlands-based non-profit founded in 2013 by Boyan Slat, who was just 18 at the time. TOC’s mission is to develop technologies that both remove existing plastic accumulated in ocean garbage patches and intercept new waste in rivers before it reaches the sea. This dual strategy reflects scientific findings that suggest that roughly 1% or 1,000 rivers worldwide are responsible for close to 80% of plastic entering the oceans [8]. 

To guide its long-term vision, TOC set an ambitious objective: to reduce 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040, through a combination of scaled ocean cleanup systems, targeted river interventions, and broader reductions in plastic use supported by improved waste management worldwide [9].

When the first GreenMarked case study on The Ocean Cleanup was published in 2020, the initiative was still in an experimental phase, focused on demonstrating that large-scale plastic removal at sea was technically possible. In the subsequent years, TOC has undergone a clear shift from concept validation to sustained operations. Early offshore trials revealed both the complexity of open-ocean cleanup and the need for rapid design iteration. After initial setbacks with its first system in 2018, subsequent designs demonstrated increasing reliability, leading to towed, U-shaped systems capable of consistently capturing plastic in the GPGP [10].

Figure 1: The Ocean Cleanup (n.d.) is cleaning up plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest known accumulation zone of plastic. Retrieved from The Ocean Cleanup Media Gallery and available for editorial use.

At the same time, the scope of operations expanded upstream, reflecting the dual strategy it adopted in response to early criticism highlighted in the first case-study as well as emerging scientific evidence. As such, river interception systems were deployed alongside offshore cleanup to address concerns that ocean cleanup alone would focus on symptoms rather than sources. By combining these approaches, TOC significantly accelerated its impact. In 2025 alone, the organization removed over 25 million kilograms of plastic, which is more than the total collected in all previous years combined [11]. This momentum continued into March 2026, when TOC reached a landmark milestone of 50 million kilograms of trash removed worldwide [10].