Dutch non-profit The Ocean Cleanup receives €23.1M donation from Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia

Rotterdam-based The Ocean Cleanup, a global non-profit organisation that develops technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic, announced on Friday, February 3, that it has received $25M (approximately €23.1M) in a private donation.

The donation came from Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb and Samara. He is also a member of Tesla’s Board of Directors and chairman of Airbnb.org, a non-profit that provides housing to people in crisis. Airbnb.org is currently assisting over 100,000 refugees of Ukraine.

Gebbia also provides aid to refugees via organisations like the Malala Fund and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and or encourages women and youth in athletics and education.

Gebbia says, “I’m proud to partner with The Ocean Cleanup in their crucial work to remove harmful plastics from our oceans. The Ocean Cleanup has created systems and technology that actually work at scale. In order for them to deploy across our oceans and rivers, they now need to scale their funding. It is my hope that this donation can inspire others to act.”

Solving ocean plastic pollution

Founded in 2013 by Boyan Slat, The Ocean Cleanup creates technology to remove plastic from the world’s oceans. It does that by employing a two-pronged strategy – stopping the inflow through rivers and cleaning up legacy plastic that has already accumulated in the ocean. 

For the latter, the company creates large-scale mechanisms to concentrate the plastic for recurring cleanup. When recycled into new goods, this plastic is monitored and traced using DNV’s chain of custody approach to verify origin claims. 

Since late 2021, The Ocean Cleanup’s pilot-scale ocean cleaning system, System 002, has been operating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is located between Hawaii and California and contains up to 100,000,000 kilos of plastic. 

Nearly 200,000 kilos (or about 440,000 pounds) of plastic that would have otherwise stayed for decades or longer have already been extracted by this system.

In the case of rivers, The Ocean Cleanup aims to “close the tap” on plastic pollution by taking preventive action to catch more trash upstream before it enters the ocean. 

The company’s Interceptor Solutions are now operational or undergoing trials in eight different nations, with the most recent deployments started working in Los Angeles County (US) and Kingston (Jamaica) in November and December of 2022 respectively. 

With its technologies, the group has so far prevented more than 2 million kilos (nearly 4.5 million pounds) of waste from entering the waters.

Currently, the organisation employs a team of 145 people.

Capital utilisation

The Ocean Cleanup says it will use the funds to support the launch of System 03, the most recent version of its ocean cleaning system, in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch later this year.

The money will also help the company to expand and continue its operations across rivers, oceans, recycling, and scientific research.

Founder Boyan Slat says, “As a non-profit project with a big mission, we cannot do it alone – we need financial contributions to achieve our objectives. Joe’s continued support of The Ocean Cleanup’s mission has a direct impact on our operations all over the world.”