Kia Corporation 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) – which has an estimated surface area of 1.6mn sqkm.
Key supporter
“We are honoured 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,” remarked Charles Ryu, Senior Vice President and Head of the Global Brand & CX Division, Kia Corporation.
“The Ocean Cleanup is an international non-profit and our operations are reliant on our incredible partnerships”, stated Boyan Slat, Founder and CEO, The Ocean Cleanup.
Over the past two and a half years, Kia and The Ocean Cleanup have worked together to reduce plastic pollution. In its first six years of operation, The Ocean Cleanup executed 23 operational trips and completed more than 100 plastic extraction missions.
