Indonesia Inks Deal With Netherlands & The Ocean Cleanup To Remove Plastic Debris From Rivers
Indonesia has a goal to reduce marine plastic debris 70% by 2025. It's indeed possible. In fact, the world has the potential and technology to drastically clean up our oceans, Great Lakes and other waterways.
Today, the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment of Indonesia, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management of the Netherlands, and The Ocean Cleanup, the international non-profit project developing and scaling technologies to rid the oceans of plastic, signed a joint declaration aimed at expanding river cleanup activities in Indonesia.
"Following the expiration of the Arrangement between the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia and the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment of the Netherlands on the Pilot Project of Cleaning Up Rivers in the Jakarta Area, signed on July 12, 2017, and with due regard to other existing agreements between the two countries, and considering the positive results of the Joint Research project with Interceptor 001 in Jakarta, both government entities have endorsed the deployment of river clean-up systems in Indonesia by The Ocean Cleanup.
The Ocean Cleanup will seek support from national, regional, and local governments, international institutions, and third parties, including the private sector and potential funders, in achieving the deployment ambitions for additional Interceptor Solutions in the Republic of Indonesia."
The Ocean Cleanup develops cleanup systems that can clean up the floating plastics caught swirling in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and more. Modelling predicts that they need around 10 full-size systems to completely clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. After fleets of their systems are deployed into every ocean gyre, combined with source reduction, The Ocean Cleanup projects to be able to remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.
Last year, only a half-mile installation of theirs took 20,000 pounds of plastic out of the Pacific. Their floating systems are designed to capture plastics ranging from small pieces, just millimetres in size, up to large debris, including massive, discarded fishing nets (ghost nets), which can be tens of meters wide.
System 002, their latest system iteration, reached proof of technology on October 20th, 2021, meaning they can now start the cleanup. They have also developed technology to efficiently intercept plastic in rivers before it reaches the ocean. This is important because rivers are the main source of ocean plastic pollution.
Looking Deeper
After years of researching and investigating climate change and environmental issues, we came to many conclusions that we felt needed to shared, yet were extremely rare in public discourse. We made a documentary a couple of years ago year called Regenerate: Beyond The CO2 Narrative.
One of the most important aspects of Regenerate is that we are looking at our environment from such a limited point of view that we can’t identify the real issues we face, and that our level of thinking, or consciousness, is completely disconnected from the solutions required to truly shift our relationship with earth. Thus, we are creating solutions that don’t truly address making the environment cleaner or better long term. It seems environmental initiatives at the government and corporate level seem to benefit those in power by putting more control and profit in to their hands while earth continues to suffer.
That's why we are such big supports of The Ocean Cleanup, it's a real solution.
You can check out our documentary below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM7wE4CETr8