The Ocean Cleanup project has successfully completed its crowd funding campaign.

With the
support of more than 38,000 funders from 160 countries, in 100 days more than US $2million has been raised.

The project, founded by 20-year-old Dutchman Boyan Slat when he was just 17, aims to clean the oceans of plastics using a system of long floating arms attached to the
seabed, so that ‘the oceans can basically clean themselves.’

Thanks to the successful funding campaign, the next
step, which comprises the construction and testing of large-scale
operational pilots, can now be initiated.

The Ocean Cleanup will now assemble a new team to
lead the research, and plans to start the pilot phase next month.

The team projects the first pilot will hit the ocean within a year. A
series of up-scaling tests will ultimately result in a fully operational
offshore cleanup array by 2017.

Crowd funding record-breaker

Boyan Slat, CEO of The Ocean Cleanup Foundation, said: ‘Plastic
pollution has been recognised by the UN as one of the major
environmental challenges facing mankind in the 21st century.

‘The crowd
funding received so far enables us to start the Pilot Phase, in which we
push the concept from feasible to executable.

‘Hence, we are very
grateful to all of whom have supported us worldwide, all crowd funding
and professional in kind contributors, as well as the many volunteers
and ambassadors who invested their enthusiasm, and gave us the
confidence to keep going.’

In June this year, Boyan Slat presented The Ocean
Cleanup’s feasibility study – a 530-page report, authored by 70
scientists and engineers – proposing a viable method to clean half of
the so-called ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ within 10 years’ time.

At
the same time, a crowd funding campaign was launched, aiming to collect $2million within 100 days. The target
had been achieved in 98 days.

After completion, US $2,154,282 had been raised via 38,615 donors,
making it ‘the most successful non-profit crowd funding campaign in
history’, according to crowd funding platform ABN AMRO’s SEEDS, who
facilitated the campaign.