OUR STORY

Ocean Plastics, Defined

Ocean Plastics /ˈōSHən plastiks / are plastics which, directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, are disposed of or abandoned into the marine environment (NOAA)

Threats of Ocean Plastics

  • Marine life can be caught and injured, or potentially killed in certain types of debris. Lost fishing nets are especially dangerous. In fact they are often called “ghost” nets because they continue to fish even though they are no longer under the control of a fisher. Ghost nets can trap or wrap around animals, entangling them. Plastic debris with loops can also get hooked on wildlife – think packing straps, six-pack rings, handles of plastic bags, etc.

  • Animals may mistakenly eat plastic and other debris. We know that this can be harmful to the health of fish, seabirds, and other marine animals. These items can take up room in their stomachs, making the animals feel full and stopping them from eating real food.

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Ocean Plastics 101
Ocean Plastics 101

Harmless Enough?

The discovery of a child’s toy launched a career in ocean conservation.

OPR co-founder Andy Schroeder discovered one of the “Floatees” bathtub toys while guiding a kayaking trip in Kodiak in his twenties.

Two years later, an article in the Atlantic, followed by a book on the subject drew him in. As it turned out, the toy frog had been lost from a container spill near Hawaii, and had spent twelve years in the marine environment before washing up on Afognak island.

Moved by the experience, Andy launched a campaign to collect marine debris in 2007 that continues to this day.

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OPR Origin Story (Andy’s Version)
OPR Origin Story (Andy’s Version)

The Problem Solver

 

He built a reputation in the recycling industry for understanding complex waste streams. Then he met his match.

OPR co-founder Scott Farling met Andy in 2018, when both were invited by a mutual friend to accompany her on a humpback whale survey in Alaska.

Along the way, the conversation turned to marine debris, and the challenges he’d encountered in finding a way to recycle it.

Almost immediately, Farling became obsessed with finding new pathways for recycling and recovery in the mother of all plastic waste streams.

As a college student, Max Romey was silenced by what he saw. Not anymore.

Max Romey was hired by Andy Schroeder to join a marine debris crew in 2015, to clean up wreckage from the Tohoku tsunami.

An aspiring filmmaker at the time, Max and friends showed up ready to film a documentary. It didn’t turn out that way.

Most of the team were shocked by their experience. Though the cleanup expedition was success, the complicated relationship between humans and plastic derailed the story. At least at the time.

Now, as OPR’s chief storyteller, Max has found his voice.

Finding Your Voice

OPR

Est. 2018

A Picture worth 1,000 Bottles

Inspired by a picture book, Max Romey headed out with us to a remote beach on Alaska's coastline in search of marine debris, but we found a different story all together.

SMALL STEPS

ON A BIG JOURNEY

Diving Deeper

Max Romey’s second film featuring OPR goes “beyond the bottle” to grapple with the ubiquity of plastics in our day-to-day lives, and the potential of ocean plastics to massively disrupt systems that support life on earth.

A snapshot of the global array of marine debris that can wash up on a single shore in Katmai.
Working together to pull out a huge tire that washed up. Many ropes, line and nets are half buried in the socks and logs so we work-together to pry them out whole before they get broken up on the shore.
Removing debris from a long flat breach in Katmai.
One of the ducks from a container of floaties that washed overboard almost 30 years ago, found on a beach in Katmai.
Some debris floats above the waves, but often much of it will travel below the surface until a storm washes it up above the tide line.
All the debris on 100 feet of share captured by painter Max Romey on a trip to Katmai.
The Island C putting the skiff in the water to ferry volunteers to shore.

Follow our journey.

 
View fullsize From Kodiak to Mallorca, we are shifting gears to present along side @stina_inc at the #sustainabledestinationssummit This island in the middle of the Mediterranean is a world apart, but experiences a lot of the same challenges we see in Alaska. Ve
View fullsize Sometimes life needs a little reframing. This giant Goodyear tire was found on a remote beach in Alaska. Although it weighed close to 300lb it must have floated all the way here from when it fell off a ship, or dock or into a River. It took our whole
View fullsize Still filling in the picture 🖌 One of the hardest parts of helping our distressed ocean ecosystems is just understanding what is out there. How much marine debris ends up on Alaskan shores each year? For every pound of plastics we pick up on the
View fullsize Working together to unwrap a net tangled log on the shore of Afognak. It’s hard to account for all of our trash, but it’s far harder to remove marine debris at this stage. But what other choice do we have? If we wait too long, the harsh A
View fullsize Finding our way. For the last few weeks the Ocean Plastics Recovery Project has been connecting and collaborating with our partners from across the US as we recommit to our heading. Like a ship on the sea we are affected by the ebb and flow of the c
View fullsize It takes a team! Excited to hear Nina Butler, co-founder and CEO of @stina_inc share her perspective on transitioning "from business as usual to a new paradigm", one in which we value nature as we shift from a linear to a circular economy.
View fullsize On America Recycles Day, the U.S. based Ocean Plastics Recovery Project would like to thank the 26 volunteers who joined us in Alaska this summer for our largest collection effort to date, removing 7 tonnes of ocean plastic from the coast of Katmai N
View fullsize Honored to receive the Tales from the Heart award from the @fridayharborfilm festival for If You Give a Beach a Bottle. Marine debris is still a largely invisible problem for most people and a short film is just one small way to bring awareness to th
View fullsize Bear saftey is a key part of Alaskan Marine Debris cleanups. Bear tracks are everywhere on these beaches and much of the marine debris has toothmarks in it from curious bears. Fortunately Andy and the crew have a ton of experience about how to safely
View fullsize Breakdown of a bucket 🪣 One big challenge in the recovery and recycling of marine debris is understanding the way the elements break down ocean plastics. These common white buckets can be found all over the remote beaches of Alaska in all stages o
View fullsize Capt. Andy Schroeder is a co-founder of the Ocean Plastics Recovery Project, and has dedicated his career to restoring pristine habitat to Alaska’s coastline and raising awareness about the sources, impacts, and scale of the ocean plastics prob
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