Kia Corporation of South Korea and global partner The Ocean Cleanup are celebrating a significant milestone in their joint strategy to tackle plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. Symbolically returning to the port of San Francisco from which the first-generation System 001 vessel embarked on its maiden voyage six years ago, The Ocean Cleanup’s current System 03 has completed a significant haul.
Since the establishment of the partnership in 2022, Kia’s support has helped The Ocean Cleanup remove over one million pounds of plastic from the world’s largest accumulation of floating waste – the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), located between Hawaii and California in the North Pacific.
In a significant step towards achieving its mission of ridding the world’s oceans of plastic, The Ocean Cleanup has announced a clear timeline to clean up the GPGP. While data gathered during this season’s operations suggests that the GPGP could be cleaned within 10 years thanks to identified technological improvements, the global NGO is pushing boundaries and aims to halve the time needed to clean the GPGP to five years.
Charles Ryu, Senior Vice President and Head of the Global Brand & CX Division at Kia Corporation, said: “All of us at Kia extend our warmest congratulations to The Ocean Cleanup team for its continued dedication and hard work as the only organization actively tackling plastic pollution in the GPGP. We are honored to be a key supporter of its ocean cleanup activities and look forward to an even more ambitious chapter of our partnership as System 03 and operations are improved to shorten the timeline for cleanup.”
“The Ocean Cleanup is an international non-profit and our operations are reliant on our incredible partnerships”, said Boyan Slat, Founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup. “Our partnership with Kia is setting a new standard for how organizations can drive real change. Together, we’re proving that innovation and commitment can rid the oceans of plastic and inspire others to follow. The products born from this collaboration will symbolize our shared progress and the tangible impact of sustainable solutions.”
(Photo of vessel at Port of San Francisco from Kia and photo of Great Pacific Garbage Patch from Seaside Sustainability).
