Dan: Give me a specific example from the river side of things. We’re deploying technology in rivers all over the world that are different, like Jamaica, Malaysia, and Guatemala. What are some similarities in the wildlife and learnings over almost 5 years?
Matthias: The main difference when comparing rivers to oceans is that in oceans, we look into the negative impacts that occur during cleanup operations. In relatively pristine environments, there’s marine life and pollution. In rivers, they are so highly polluted that there’s hardly any life left. It’s not just the plastic; there’s untreated wastewater from settlements and industrial runoff going into the rivers. They’re highly polluted with chemicals and heavy metals, making them almost dead ecosystems.
In rivers, the impact we’re having is not so much around our interceptor but where the plastic would otherwise go. It often ends up in mangroves, coral reefs, or on coastlines and beaches. Those are the ecosystems we need to study, not the river itself. We’re intercepting plastic and preventing it from going into the ocean.
At the end of a river mouth, when you transition from river to ocean, you have very vulnerable and sensitive ecosystems. These ecosystems provide essential services to communities and our climate. They are important carbon sinks, produce a lot of oxygen, and serve as fishery nurseries. Mangroves, for example, are emerging as a hot topic. They offer numerous services, such as acting as nurseries for fish, capturing carbon, and preventing coastline erosion.
With more storms, hurricanes, and extreme weather conditions due to climate change, these services are becoming increasingly crucial.
Matthias: The main difference when comparing rivers to oceans is that in oceans, we look into the negative impacts that occur during cleanup operations. In a relatively pristine environment, there’s marine life and pollution. But in rivers, they are so highly polluted there’s hardly any life in them anymore. There’s untreated wastewater from settlements and industrial runoff going into the rivers, making them highly polluted with chemicals and heavy metals. These are almost dead ecosystems.
Our focus is now shifting a little bit away from where we intercept the plastic. We look into where the plastic would go if not intercepted. Often, it goes into mangroves, coral reefs, or onto coastlines and beaches. Those are the ecosystems you need to study. We are not cleaning the river; we are intercepting plastic and preventing it from going into the ocean. At the end of a river mouth, when you transition from river to ocean, that’s where you have very vulnerable and sensitive ecosystems. These ecosystems provide crucial services to communities and our climate, such as carbon sinks, oxygen production, and fish nurseries.
Dan: So the mangroves are a hot topic because they provide numerous services besides acting as a nursery for fish. They capture a lot of carbon and prevent coastline erosion, which is increasingly important as more storms and extreme weather conditions arise due to climate change. How do we direct our efforts given the human connection to rivers?
Matthias: It’s a very good question. One of the biggest benefits of our ocean operations is making an invisible problem visible to humanity. Very few people actually go into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, so they don’t perceive that problem as a problem, even though it’s impacting them. If you kill the ocean, it kills the oxygen-producing ecosystem of the planet and climate regulation, impacting everyone. What we do is make the problem visible. Every time you see us dumping trash onto our boats, we show the world how much plastic is out there.
In terms of impact on humans, rivers have a bigger impact because that’s where people live and are affected by plastic pollution. But it’s not an either-or question. We are solving two different things. If you’re only one person, you might solve rivers before going into the ocean, but we can do all of that simultaneously. Cleaning up what’s already in the ocean solves an existing problem. In rivers, you start cleaning the coastlines because almost all of the plastic from a river into the ocean stays within a relatively short distance. It impacts coastal ecosystems, mangroves, corals, beaches, and the people interacting with them.
What we are really good at The Ocean Cleanup is tackling a global problem from a holistic, high-level view while solving it locally. For example, in Kingston, Jamaica, we intercept plastic in the gullies that bring it into the harbor area and remove the legacy pollution already there. This approach shows that if it works on a small scale, it can also work globally.
