About Our Cleanups

 

The first step for us when doing a cleanup is identifying a part of the ocean or coastline that needs a cleanup. We find these places by scouting the coastline first hand, analyzing maps and ocean currents, and through tips from the community. We remove trash washed up on the coastline, collect plastic floating in popular marinas and sometimes even dive to pull trash from the ocean floor.

To date we've done over 300 cleanups and collected over 34 000 kilos (74 957 pounds) of ocean trash!

We aim to focus our efforts where we can make the biggest possible impact! Today the ocean along Sweden's north west coast is the area with most plastic pollution, and is considered a "high impact area". So we do our cleanups along the west coast of Sweden. We've been between Onsala in the south all the way up to the Norwegian border in the north.

So far we've cleaned over 250 bays along the Swedish west coast!

 

You can find anything and everything on a cleanup, and almost every time we go out we find something new.

- Single use plastic.

About half of the plastic we collect is single use plastic such as plastic bottles, plastic bags, plastic cutlery or plastic packaging. 

35-40% of the trash we collect consists of things from the fishing industry, such as discarded fishing nets, ropes, gloves and boots. 

Some other common finds on our cleanups are pieces of metal, glass, cans full of oil, and polestyrene. These account for 5-10% of the trash we find on our cleanups.

Since we've cleaned over 250 bays along the Swedish coastline, of course we've found some special items. One of them was a message in a bottle, sent back in 2011 by a school class in Denmark. The message told us how they liked to play with toys, dance like ballerinas, play football and sing, and it was signed by all the children in the class. 

Another highlight was finding a space probe. In the autumn of 2019 we found some sort of weather measuring device sent into space that had probably landed in the ocean and eventually washed up on the coastline south of Grundsund.

The trash we collect is taken care of by the authorities, in some of the best recycling facilities in Sweden. Whatever trash that can be sorted and recycled is turned into new materials that prevent more virgin plastic from being produced. But unfortunately all the trash we collect can't be recycled if the material is damaged from being in the ocean for too long, if it's too dirty or if it consists of many different materials that can't be separated effectively.

 

Want to help us remove some more plastic from the ocean?

By getting a CleanSea bracelet you fund our removal of 1 more kilo of trash from the ocean. Pull the next kilo today by getting your CleanSea bracelet!