By 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish.

A Plastic Problem

Each year 16 billion pounds of plastic end up in our oceans. Plastic doesn't break down, but it does break up into small pieces that accumulate toxins and poison wildlife. Those toxins have made their way up the food chain and into our seafood dinners in some cases. The large variety of sizes, shapes, and chemical compositions as well as the distribution of plastic debris across our world's oceans makes this environmental challenge incredibly difficult to solve.

The extent of the damage, the permanence of the situation, and the resilience of ocean ecosystems are all unknown. We do know that for everyone who depends on the oceans for nourishment, breaths air (most of Earth's oxygen comes from phytoplankton living near the water's surface), or enjoys their sushi specials plastic free, this is a problem that must be solved.

Building Innovative Solutions

When it comes to problems of this scale and complexity, you can't reach for old solutions, because there are none. It's just a large wicked problem. We are going to have to invent the solutions.

We will host a Sandpit that will produce fundable research and pilot projects for understanding and resolving the plastic ocean pollution problem.

The scientific nature of the challenge requires expertise from a number of domains: Ecosystem Biology, Chemistry, Evolutionary Biology, Earth Sciences especially Oceanography, and potentially others.

The sheer size of the problem requires engineering expertise. We're talking about moving billions of tons of something, or possibly transforming it in place. We'll need broad engineering knowledge.

Lastly, because of the scale of the problem, we have to build economically viable solutions. There is no pocketbook big enough to hire enough people to clean microplastic pollution by hand or even with our most advanced cleanup tech. Microplastic debris is too small, too invasive, and too distributed. We will need corporate social responsibility participation and ingenius entrepreneurial talent.

Hi, my name is Costa, and I'll be leading this Sandpit. I am a member of a small family of innovation companies and I want to personally assure you that my team works on exactly this type of challenge: Big, complex, seemingly intractable.

No problem is beyond the capabilities of human ingenuity, and over the years we've become quite masterful at facilitating just this sort of thing.

Learn About Our Past Projects »

Step 2: Engaging Citizen Scientists

We're going to need everyone to pitch in.

This is going to be a massive undertaking, and we're going to need a community of citizen scientists, ocean lovers, artists, and all kinds of other misfits and heros to help : ) There will be a variety of ways to get involved, including Digital Backstage Passes, voting on innovation project ideas, contributing your skills, supporting project outreach, and more.

To follow along as the project develops, sign up for updates (no spam, easy unsubscribe). Plus, we're planning on major early bird discounts and perks!