To those commenting that the Ocean Cleanup does somewhat customise their solution to different rivers and are in fact making a (small) difference to plastic pollution (and not claiming to be _the_ solution): you're missing the point. At no point do I say the interceptors don't clean up floating plastic. They do what they're designed to do. The point of this video is that _better_ solutions are known, and further will actually accomplish the TeamSeas goal of significantly reducing ocean plastic pollution (with the nice benefit of also cleaning up rivers). As Dr Schutte says: why settle for less than the best solution?

This video is great, because the problems with the interceptor are even inherent in one of their videos, the one you were using clips of in this video where he plays basketball with the locals.. They go talk to the locals about why they dump stuff in the river. Turns out they don't have bins or any form of waste management, and basically dump stuff on the floor which then flows into the river when it rains. And then they proceed to do nothing about it, and go back to the interceptor.

I'm all for science and innovation, but if a "low tech" solution is cheaper and more efficient (as well as proven) then I'd rather prefer using that instead of flashy new things. The worst offenders are those who try to reinvent trains and just end up with shittier, but more sparkly trains.

Like many others said, ocean cleanup isn't the solution, but it's definitely helps! The worst thing we can do, is do nothing while we argue about some perfect solution that will never be perfect.

When Ocean Cleanup was only working on cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, they were criticized for ignoring river pollution. OC responded by aggressively pursuing their river Interceptor initiative - now criticized here, in turn. It's true the Interceptors don't address the greatest causes of pollution: 1) use of plastics in short-lived consumer and industrial goods, and 2) failure of nations - many poor and corrupt - to invest adequately in waste management facilities. Unfortunately, these largest causes of pollution are driven by considerations far beyond the reach of an organization like the OC.

Keep in mind that The Interceptors are only half of what the Ocean Cleanup does. The other half right now is focusing on cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and there has already been some good progress. However, it may have the same problems as the Interceptors as you addressed. But at the end of the day, we should still be grateful for both of these solutions because they are still better than nothing~

The interceptors are considered a "band aid" until the trash systems in those areas are improved, they weren't made as an end all solution and they explained that very much so in their videos.

Preventing *more* plastic and other waste entering our water ways is definitely the way to go. But...sooner rather than later we also need mechanisms to remove the plastic that is already out there. Ideally we'll want to do this before plastic decomposes into micro plastic as removing *that* is an even tougher nut to crack.

We have i think 3 of the floaty conveyor things here in Malaysia on the Klang River. I have lived in the general area of the river pretty much my whole life and pass it quite frequently and honestly the thing seems to be doing its work. The river appears cleaner and the water looks nicer. It still smells like a road gutter, but it's a step in the right direction

This isn’t related to the topic, but thank you so much for having such good subtitles. The colour coding for different speakers is especially helpful. I’m personally not hard of hearing, I just watch videos in loud environments sometimes, but I have friends who are, so having great and amazingly accessible videos to recommend them is always amazing. Thank you.

I've seen these interceptor style things working in rivers and even if it's only getting 40% of the plastic in the river, thats still a ton of plastic. They were literally swapping out dumpsters because they were getting filled up quickly. Is it a perfect solution? 100% not. But its still a good idea. Let these take on the easy pickin's surface plastics while getting the message out regarding polluting and then work on a new tech for submersed plastics. Who knows. Some kid seeing that will then start to pick up 5 pieces of trash a day.

This really does feel like a view from study scientists. You can’t just say “it’s not the best solution so just do nothing”

Brutally honest and informative. A key feature I keep seeing is there is a lot of focus is on "solutions" that look cool, rather than being honest with ourselves and focus on what actually works.

Personally I never took it that the interceptors were any type of ‘solution’ to plastic pollution, just a way to reduce plastic pollution, and they certainly do do that. Now even such as 1% of plastic pollution is a lot of plastic for this worlds amount of plastic pollution, so while sure it might not sound like a lot, it still ends up being a pretty good amount of plastic.

The main point of those machines is to build hype over the fact someone cares enough to make a change. This in turn creates more funding for more ambitious projects. It's far from a perfect solution as the creator has stated, but it's a start.

summary of the video: youtuber A with the help of random scientists bashes youtubers B and C who try to help cleaning up plastics. First team clearly spends more time doing powerpoints than picking up anything but the logic is: "if you cant do it perfectly then just sit on your hands". Great content.

I think this is a microcosm of the biggest problem surrounding how we deal with environmental issues, our inability to upset the status quo in any way. Essentially unchecked progress in technology has resulted in plastic waste everywhere, loss of habitats and climate change. Instead of approaches - informed by science - that could mitigate impact in the first place there is a desire for a new technical solution that will simply make the problem go away. Technology is not magic, Marvel is not real. We have had the knowledge and technology for DECADES for all energy production to be green but doing that transition would have funnelled power and wealth away from those who had it. We have the solutions for plastic waste, we're just incapable of sacrificing anything to make it happen, instead let's hope a magic boat will sort it out instead.

I respect the place you're arguing from, but saying that interceptors "don't work" is overly critical. While it may be more ecologically beneficial to prevent additional trash from entering river systems when compared to removing trash that is already there, *It is still valuable to take out the trash that is already there*. While select rivers may have subsurface plastics as the majority component, surface plastic is still the most prevalent in river systems according to current data, and interceptors effectively remove it. There is space for both waste management efforts to reduce waste entering rivers AND intercepts to take out plastic that is already there. This is a good initiative.

Ocean cleanup went through a bunch of iterations and is planning for more, I feel it's kind of unfair to try and declare these guys useless when they haven't even gone through a whole iteration yet.

The thing I admire about Ocean Cleanup is they have spent years researching the problem and developing and modifying their methods. They actually moved forward and implemented their ideas. Systematic change would of course be the best solution but in the meantime what are we supposed to do? 15 million for new waste management infrastructure is a joke.

This does not hit the nail on the Head. The main issue posed is ''Why is solution X not solution Y, Y is better'' which is false dichotomy, this is a YES AND problem. Further, if solution Y is better, but Y is a collection of regionally-specific solutions, and X is a specific one, X is probably a subset of Y Further, if data is not available (min 13ish) then there is no Y In addition, the ''following recent flashy science'' thing is fair in general, but weird in specific here. Rocket science is not new, the engineering is new. Tony Stark Science is fiction, Team Seas science would be, i dont know, archimedes? conveyor belts are probably ancient. The Engineering is new. You cannot read a science paper and just apply it, it needs actual field work, and pushing back on field work will not help, it creates inaction, which is worse than picking the nth most optimal solution. It's worth mentioning, that the solutions at about min 15 could be pushed back on in this same way. Single use plastics will probably be replaced with something heavier, inducing more air polution for transport. Which is not to say that we shouldnt replace them, but that this is not a good lens to view the problem from. I think you are overestimating how big a campaign this is, because it exists in your space and is personal to you. 32m is a big number, but similarly does not move the needle for things like changing global infrastructure. It does clean up some trash though.

A big problem with the alternative solutions you didn't really address....the counties responsible for a lot of the river based plastic waste don't have particularly strong environmental agencies that can push for customized solutions at the source of waste...it's very easy to say X should be done, but if large corps have effectively bought environmental regulatory bodies in other countries, nothing will actually happen This argument also seems to indicate the interceptor is a completely finished system that will receive no updates over it's lifetime, and never improve in efficacy or price

By the time any solution gets implemented there will always be something more effective, it feels harsh to say things like this about an initiative that's actually doing something and actively working to try to fix an issue.

While I think that stopping plastic from going in the ocean in the first place is very important you didn’t really propose another solution for plastic that has already entered the river. Organizing waste management on international scale is really difficult to do.

As someone from a developing country: While I agree with some points here, I also completely disagree with some points. The 'better solution' that has been mentined here all share significant problems: they are all complex solutions at best -- or hopelessly idealistic solution at worst. Yes, there's no single silver bullet to every problem. But the solution here has some significant advantages: It's flashy for marketing purpose, it's easily quantifiable, has an easily visible output, and does NOT require complex coordination with locals. That last point is actually a good point. Of course, stopping trashes from entering the river in the first place is a much better solution than stopping it in a single point before ocean. That solution is an obvious solution, but in reality it's a solution that is not a good solution for campaigns such as this in developing countries such as mine. 1. Improving/adding local landfill is the best solution that indeed we have to add as a priority, but even that still require much more significant cooperation with local government. Government (especially LOCAL government, not national level government) can be a really difficult entity for cooperation, and is not something that effectively solved by a crowdfunding campaign (you can't simply throw money to fix it). 2. There are a lot of logistic problems with moving trashes to said local landfills. 3. There are a lot of problems with people not putting trashes in the supposed place in the first place. Let alone sorting or recycling it. 4. There are a lot of problems with people throwing trashes to the rivers/waterway directly, and laws for this are not being enforced at all, etc. I'm not saying those examples shouldn't/couldn't be tackled, there have been some improvements in those areas afterall. But they are really poor goals for big crowdfundings such as this. Cooperating with local governments is not only hard, but is also a source for ineffectiveness and corruptions. It's really hard to measure how effective the money are spent (compared to simple 1 dollar = x of trashes taken out). It will take a long time for the goal to be actually achieved. A lot of the process are not really visible and will need to be applied in a lot of places that you can't see all at once (compared to just observing one boat chugging trashes in a single point). My other criticism is that the video repeats so many times that the ocean cleanup is not effective, but it doesn't tell how ineffective it is in a quantifiable comparison. Some of the other proposed 'solutions' are what I categorized as 'hoplessly idealistic'. Having companies to reduce or stop plastic production for packaging and battling against the force of economics and the lack of political will? Yeah, I don't think a youtube campaign could set that as a goal. Again, we could and need to do them. #TeamSeas could attempt and bring more attentions to those solutions, but I believe that the current campaign is already pretty good and going with the 'perfect solution' would likely bring needless complexity and made the communication worse. We need to promote the 'perfect solution' as a long-term goal that we need to keep tackle after the crowdfunding, but a temporary solution such as this is perfectly fine. As many has pointed out: Perfect is the enemy of done.

I think you misunderstood the project. Half of the money is spend on taking waste out of the ocean and the other half is spend on trying to reduce the amount of waste going into the ocean. The aim wasn’t to clean up rivers and it wasn’t to put a robot at the end of every river but to stop most of the pollution coming from areas with no waste management. (Till local governments or the UN can provide waste management) If that does cut the amount of waste entering the ocean in half es the guy from the Netherlands said, then this is a huge success. *And no, I somehow doubt that the problem in the poorest of regions is large plastic waste leaking through. It’s obviously through away stuff in these areas causing most of the pollution. Your research is undoubtedly true yet it doesn’t reflect the purpose and the successes of these machines.

interceptors attempt to solve one part of the problem, other non-profits can step in to solve the other ones. this is going to be a team effort.

Let's criticize people who are actually doing something about the problem while offering no better solutions other then idealized blue sky wishful thinking. Great video.

I have a few problems with this video: #1. The alternative solution proposed in this video is essentially subsidized garbage collection services in 3rd world countries. This is not a $15 million problem, more like a $90 billion problem. Charities do not have the capital required for this kind of investment. On this front the Ocean Conservancy mostly does advocacy. #2. So what if The Ocean Cleanup is doing the "easy part" of removing floating plastic from rivers. If no one else is doing that job, then it is undoubtedly a net benefit. Note, the much touted Ocean Conservancy does essentially the same thing with their beach cleanups, just with more manual labor. #3. 15:23 why was this necessary? It only diminishes your point and makes you seem like a hater. In conclusion, Team Seas is doing advocacy for healthier oceans by donating to The Ocean Conservancy while also doing the flashier but nonetheless helpful work of actually picking up garbage with The Ocean Cleanup. As you said yourself, they donated equally to BOTH charities. Why must we always be so cynical, just enjoy good people doing good things for once. Edit: I think my comment keeps getting deleted because I was trying to post hyperlinks to sources. You can find my facts online on the Ocean Conservancy website.

Ok, so you've explained very well why the interceptors are not an optimal solution: 1. they only collect on the surface and 2. the plastic that goes into the ocean is a tiny fraction of all plastic. You've stated three times, that the problem needs to solved at the roots, which is a platitude. Unfortunately, by only mentioning the alternatives and not explaining the science behind them, you've effectively reproduced the campaign of TeamSeas. As a viewer, I would like to know, what the better solutions would be and how they would compare against the interceptors. It feels like a missed opportunity to not talk about them...

I find that the video very heavily criticises TeamSeas for doing a good thing that is not good enough and hints at solutions being complicated. So complicated that Simon himself can not actually mention any of them in the video itself. TeamSeas on the other hand was able to come up with something that people could take part in and start helping NOW, and at least bring awareness to the topic. In this video we are basically told that there are other more complex solutions that should be implemented, but does not give the view a real call to action. It's seem to me that Simon is letting perfect be the enemy of the good. The garbage collected by the interceptors is not adding that in the ocean = GOOD. Awareness of people that saw the video and who might try to help in someway = GOOD. Yes there is much more to do, but he seems to like bringing TeamSeas back as a punching bag when he did not really need to.

You are WRONG. I greatly appreciate this video, it's been very educational. Have you seen some of "ocean clean ups" latest videos? They released a series of videos explaining similar problems to what you discussed. They touch on needing different solutions for each river, they also talk about changing the populations mindset so that they pollute LESS among other steps that need to be taken in order to solve the "plastic problem" as a WHOLE.

My main question with this video is 1) Do the better solutions make use of money as well? It's all very well to say we need systematic change - we do - but you can't achieve systematic change with a few million dollars. You can buy a robot to lower the amount of plastic waste entering the ocean. 2) Is it diverting reasorces that would better be used elsewhere? Or is it generating new investment into plastic reduction that otherwise would not exist? I.E. Is it actually competing with other solutions, or is it just existing on top of them. There's a lot of people who will donate to a shiny technological solution that otherwise couldn't be pursuaded to help

This same logic goes for almost every global non profit issue. It's more important to spread the message of "Hey this problem matters and we actually could fix it" Even the best nonprofit's have a marketed solution that doesn't solve the overall problem. Whether it's saving trafficked girls to planting trees, none of it actually does anything to solve the REAL issue, it mostly just raises awareness for people to care and feel it IS possible to stop, and must be stopped.

TeamSeas does work. It removes literal tons of garbage and plastic from our oceans. It doesn't solve all problems but criticizing partial solutions doesn't seem like a good way to try to save the environment. This same concept is going to be super important for combating climate change. We are not going to find the perfect solution right away, but we should cheer on any incremental step towards this goal.

Yea asking 2 youtubers to alter the way plastic is produced, used and disposed of is totally reasonable. I'm sure that 30mil dollars is enough to convince every country on earth to ban plastic and fund the waste management system of every country. Thank you for the amazing video that totally doesn't feel like an attempt to make some quick and easy money off of a charity with great intentions.

I agree, but those systemic solutions require governmental action across the whole world, TOC is out of their element here

If Team Seas is about removing x amount of plastic from the ocean, does it matter, that they choose an inefficient method of getting to that x amount?

The attitude presented in the video is the problem, that nothing should be done until a complete solution is implemented. The Interceptors (and Mr. Trash Wheel) are part of the solution, but demanding that poor countries that generate most ocean pollution switch to expensive alternatives to platic and implement massive waste management plans are unrealistic.

I think it's clear that a lot of science and evidence based charities and orgs are doing the right thing, but it's obvious the community does not know how to market or get people excited worth a lick. And i think that's what TeamSeas unlocked a bit. Instead of giving TeamSeas a hard time for receiving so many donations, i think it's absolutely worth to study what they did right and how to channel those things to orgs that you care about. Yes the interceptor has time spent on how it looks and how it's marketed instead of pure research time, but the design and marketing is a tool to get it in front of as many peoples' eyes as possible. Charities and orgs need to see that as a good thing, because a lot of people like me feel its better to get something off the ground than to always be imagining better solutions without putting forth an actual working solution.

This is a fantastic video, however on the point of "lower income countries focusing on improving waste collection" is literal insanity, the primary issue is that countries in the developed world have been shipping our waste to poorer nations under the guise of recycling for decades. Improving their waste management programs misses the fact that most of the garbage that is leaking into the oceans is imported from countries that do not want to process their own waste. Its such a big issue that many nations especially lower income nations have followed the Chinese example of outright banning the import of foreign waste, and many island nations such as the Philippines perform regular "trash audits" where they monitor that amount of trash that comes from different countries and issue fines to the companies that are importing it and try to spread awareness about how the plastic waste from the US/Canada/UK and Europe are some how showing up on their shores by the ton. Even looking at this from a cultural stand point, many if not most lower income countries especially Indian regions and south pacific countries were low yield, local production locations which relied on using reusable and sustainable packaging, single use plastic and mass produced goods are really only a thing that started showing up since the 80s in many of these places that are deemed to be heavy polluters. The only reason that single use plastics are showing up in these places at all is through western influence and corporate expansion, even in the modern developed nation single use plastics didn't hit their stride until the late 70s early 80s before then it was very common to be able to purchase what you needed with a container that would be returned cleaned and reused, milk bottles are a cultural meme, but everything used to work that way. The world's plastic waste problem is a global issue affecting 8 billion people, cause overwhelmingly by a few multi-national corporations that really only serve 1 billion people, and are trying to expand to 3-4 billion.

This is a fundamental problem in science communication, in fact in my University, in a mandatory English for science course, we had to write a “scientific solution” to a natural disaster, by which they meant using “new technology” when the issue may be with basic infrastructure or other things where none of the solutions we are allowed to propose can fit the situation. I got an A by cramming buzzwords into my essay that had no meaning whatsoever

As someone already said don't try to find a single/ simple solution for a complex problem. The interceptors are not "the" solution for river plastic but rather "a" solution.

As an IT-specialist I love new technology as much as anyone, but a lot of people on the internet are so impressed by fancy new technology, that they forget to ask whether that's actually needed to solve the problem or even if the alleged problem even needed a solution at all. IoT stuff is the best example, where a lot of products require microchips and online connectivity for something that could've been achieved by purely analogue electric or even mechanical systems. Home appliances are another one: Why does a whole range of toasters with microprocessors, LC-Displays and various toasting programs exist, when a simple model that appart from the case just consist of a spring, an electromagnet, some high resistance wire and a potentiometer achieves the same darn thing? I get that it's fun to marvel at the ingenuity of making a highly complex technical system work smoothly, but that shouldn't make one forget that the simpler you can make the solution to a problem, the better, cheaper and more reliable it usually will be!

Perfect is the enemy of good. There clearly are more long term optimal ways of handling waste, but this is what is able to be done in actual deployments right now and is making a positive impact on the environment and local economies where these interceptors are placed. I recently watched a video by the ocean cleanup titled “Interceptor Trashfence Stops a Plastic Tsunami” and it is beyond clear that these projects are relatively low budget decently high impact approaches to reducing the amount of plastic and other waste that gets into the ocean. Based on the video, it looks like they may have a team of 10 or 20 people working on this fence, which is enough to make a substncial impact on this river, but is nowhere near enough to provide garbage services for all the communities that are contributing to this problem. I haven’t donated to team seas, but I am relatively closely following their actions and they are clearly doing incredibly valuable impactful projects.

Everything you say the ocean cleanup should be doing, is what they're doing as far as I've seen. I've seen them talk about stopping the plastic waste at the true source, but that's a much harder problem, that's better handled by the local government. I'm pretty sure I've seen them working on solutions that can stop plastic deeper in the river. What you think are bad aspects of ocean cleanup is IMO good: 1. Doing flashy but less effective projects that give them attention and funding.. they started with the great pacific garbage patch because it's headline grabbing. But they clearly followed the science and started tackling rivers first. Again, the interceptor isn't the most effective, but it's a useful solution to some problems and it's headline grabbing. 2. They're making solutions we're going to need eventually. We should clean up the great pacific garbage patch eventually and we might as well start developing solutions now. 3. They're clearly moving in the direction of what science says we should focus on. But they're not letting scientific idealism get in the way doing what it takes to get funding, which should always be their #1 priority.

so happy to see people on the front line making a difference!!!!

"It's defining and quantifying your problem, if you don't know what the problem is, it will be extremely difficult to tackle it and demonstrate that you have solved the problem." This is also some of the best relationship advice I've heard in a while too XD

This hits the nail on the head. We have the technology, the expertise and apparently the public will and potentially means to make real headway on some of the real issues in the world. All we need now is for the ones with the money and fame to make it happen to actually direct their power to the most effective (if not the flashiest) place

I agree with the overall sentiment, but we need to look at what we can do as individuals. I regularly pick up trash in my neighborhood. It's a lost cause, but after each cleaning the area looks nice, so that's the payoff. I focus on high traffic areas and specific sites and don't worry about the overall picture. Of course, there has to be some infrastructure in place for any cleaning campaign to be a success.

This channel: "TheOceanCleanup doesnt customize their solutions" Also this channel: * Only offers solutions right at the source * (plastic already in the ocean can rot there)

I think a big part of why Ocean Cleanup chooses its methods is marketing. Removing a pound of plastic from the oceans for every dollar received sounds infinitely times better than contributing to all the other more vague solutions, even when they're way more useful. I'm confident that TeamSeas chose them mainly out of misinformation, but utilizing this way of promoting the charity must've been a huge plus too.

I feel like the complexity here is that we’re kind of comparing a greater solution that is defined with a lot of politics mixed in and a lesser solution which is defined as primarily an issue of raising money. Defining the problem as a complex problem requiring all kind of boots on the ground and unknown engagement with unknown entities makes ordinary viewers feel like the problem is unsolvable or that if there is a solution, not one that we have a part in. As a person who is not ready to change my career to become a plastic cleanup lobbyist, the question that I really want to know is where is the most effective place I can put donations? If Ocean Cleanup is not the best place to put dollars, where is that? Because I might not be willing to become a full time advocate now, but if you can step me into a quick actionable first step (like a 15 second donation click), that might step me into such advocacy later.

I see these efforts as one part of the solution, keep up with team seas and skimming rivers for trash, build further infrastructure to keep trash out of the water in the first place. Each idea we have to contribute to this problem is like another paragraph in the essay we need to write.

It's pretty easy to criticize TeamSeas as a surface level solution, but I'd argue that the action and visual awareness of TeamSeas does more for environmental change than critique

What I see is some energetic people undertaking an experiment in improving the environment, which may or may not prove to be successful in the long term, but does not appear to have any downside. The amount of money involved is also, in the grand scheme of things, not huge. In tackling the problems of pollution and climate change, there will, and should, be multiple approaches, some of which will fall by the wayside, and others which will prove viable and be upscaled. I think for Dr. Clark and Dr. Shutte to say that only the best solution will do is to invite inertia in expectation of some Utopian formula which may never arrive.

The problem with the "other solutions" is corruption. Sure we'll try to empower the communities, but those who are in charge would usually squander the money or put it to their pockets and do as little as possible anyway.

I think the most important detail (which isn't mentioned until 14:50) is simply "stop the production of single-use plastics. That's everything from plastic grocery bags, disposable cutlery, and packaging, to drink bottles/packets (sorry capri-sun), to things like ketchup and barbeque individual use packets. Unfortunately, plastic simply does not get recycled, pretty much anywhere, what was "being recycled" was really being dumped in China and the Philippines until they stopped accepting it (and were likely burning it, not recycling it.) So that leads me to believe we have to make some hard choices: 1) literately regulate plastic, either by requiring a refundable deposit, or imposing a levy on all plastic products. If it's too expensive to recycle, then it should not be made. Period. Go back to glass or metal bottles, at least those can both be reused and recycled. Unlike plastic (which photo-degrades, unlike metal, and leeches plasticizers into the food, unlike glass) 2) lean on other unsustainable services (eg uber-eats) to produce coolers and cutlery/dishes for their drivers, that the food, drinks and condiments can be delivered in, and then taken back to be cleaned. Then in turn lean on the restaurants to adopt these as their standard food packaging so they can be first reused, and later recycled if damaged. There is no reason McDonalds, Burger King and Wendys can not use the same "burger-saver" cooler. Right now, the amount of over-packaging from food couriers is absolutely ridiculous and is increasing the amount of garbage and plastic waste, rather than reducing it by getting less people to drive long distances for a meal. There is so much over-packaging in food, that it would not surprise me to discover that a lot of plastic trash in rivers is directly from beverage containers and "prepackaged" foods.

The fact that the interceptor is doing anything is more than most are doing. Overly critical video, no this is not an end all be all solution and I absolutely respect that position. We are not at the point in our progress to make misleading thumb nails and titles to shoot down a relatively small clean up project in comparison to the positivity it does have

As it is said: "filtering the plastic at the outlet of the rivers should be a last resort". To my knowledge we are already far past this point. "If there is the will and knowledge there are better solutions". I don't see any will in the last decades that has solved these issue to a acceptable level. It is not because something has been invented before that makes a copy is a scam if it serves the purpose. consumption It's like saying little Charlie spilled a glas of milk on the kitchen floor: The message in this video is: Should have not given a glas of milk to Charlie in the first place. There are some special bottles that don't spoil the content when dropped. And the person cleaning the mess up is a scam because they use a kitchen mop wich is not new technology. In the end the mess has to be cleaned up. Now you can discuss about thousand ways to do it properly, but you have to start somewhere and the approach taken since thousands of years is to clean it up! Kudos for starting the cleanup and not just talking about it!

I am going to have to go through their videos again, because I am pretty sure some of your criticisms have already been covered by the Ocean Cleanup group. First off is the idea that the interceptors are being offered as a one size fits all solution. Maybe when they started they might have thought that, but recent videos have really pushed the fact that they are increasingly realising that every river is different and needs different solutions. Second is they often talk about working with local communities to educate and look for solutions to the problems being faced that cause the pollution. The interceptors are put in place and are run and maintained by locals. I am not aware of the specifics, which is why my response to the criticisms is not a fanboy rant, but I feel they are at least talking about these issues. Third, with regard to the science, as far as I can see this is at the heart of what they are doing. Their research into where the pollution is coming from, finding the rivers that are doing the most damage, using machine learning to monitor and build models of pollution and even realising there is a huge problem with where all the plastic is going if so little is visibly making it into the ocean is all underpinned by science. I suppose the response to this video is up to them, but if I was them my response would be that the mission was to raise awareness and do something about the ocean garbage patches. They started with the bigger ocean cleanup mission and then realised that this was fundamentally flawed because how can you clean the ocean if you don’t stop the flow of plastic into the ocean in the first place? This is where the idea of the interceptor came from. When it comes to sorting out refuse collection and stopping plastic use in the first place, somebody else needs to start doing something about that. The scale of the problem means it will take multiple stakeholders to fix it. The critique wasn’t what I was expecting, and the fact it was backed up by science gives it a sense of validity, but it also doesn’t mean my support for the ocean clean up is going to end.

Well… i don’t agree that the interceptors is a bad idea given that it the will take a lot of time to get proper infrastructure in place to actually recycle plastic locally. We both need this kind of new technology AND better systems for managing the waste locally.

I just have to say, at least they're doing something. I don't really like the tone of this video. You know a charity is pretty hamstrung in what they can actually do. It's not like they can go out and tell huge companies what they can do or change people's lifelong habits. Unless we find out they're stealing donations or something like that, I'm all for it.

That interceptor river roomba is excellent "feel good tech". It's a simple _apparent_ solution that gives you the impression that something is being accomplished without impairing your lifestyle at all.

I think constructive criticism like this is good. I also think that many of the solutions to this problem have various difficulties in achieving. I think all together all bits help. Also despite these interceptors not being as effective, they are thriving public debate, scientific research in the problem and possible solutions. You have to start somewhere. Preferably start everywhere but at least start somewhere, and that is what this is doing. That being said keeping to improve the applied solutions with the help of constructive criticism and public debate seems like another good thing to me.

7 minutes in and the best argument we have is a guy who is promoting cleaning up the rivers and beaches, oversells the abilities of the river cleaning robot. Amazing. 🤷‍♂️ Continuing....

This guy is great: "Cleaning others mess isn't good enough, you can just try to convince others not to make a mess in the first place, even if it wont lead anywhere"

16:50 You really hit the nail on the head. The general public clearly cares a lot about causes like this, which is why publicity campaigns and greenwashing exist. But the best solution is rarely the most attractive one, and the most attractive solution is always the one that will resonate with people the most. I have a lot of respect for both Mr Beast and Mark Rober, but it's kind of ironic that a campaign fronted by an ex-NASA engineer falls so short on its efficacy due to poor scientific understanding.

In Lithuania there's nets at the end of the sewage system that goes into the rivers, and I think once a week they collect all the trash that is trapped in it and take it somewhere else. It is not a perfect system, but it does stop the biggest things from entering our rivers in the first place

They clearly explained in the video that the interceptors are a temporary solution and that they weren’t planning it to be permanent

Great points on tackling the issue closer to the source. But sadly no suggestion for what to do with the tonnes of plastic and other man-made litter ALREADY OUT THERE in the ocean.

"So that means the corporations that produce the plastic..." yeah unfortunately that is going to be a very difficult fight. Huge corporations seem to be fervently opposed to spending a single cent on environmentalism unless they can spin it as a PR stunt (but only if it doesn't actually have a substantial effect on the status quo)

Can you spend more time on the solutions of plastics in the oceans? It's a common criticism among the places I've shared to. You make it pretty vague on how specifically plastics is prevented from reaching the ocean. Thanks!

The summary of this video. If you can't fix the problem, don't do anything at all. We all know the solution to plastic in the river is making sure plastic doesn't go into that river. The issue is getting a local government to do anything about it is impossible. So next best thing to try to minimize damage. Which is what Ocean Cleanup is and is pretty clear of this.

The people complaining that "at least ocean cleanup is doing something" don't seem to realize what the actual criticism of the video is. By focusing on a showy, expensive, and much less effective method of cleanup, that money isn't being used wisely. It's like if rather than installing elevators and ramps, we decided to pay people to manually carry people who can't walk up and down stairs. Like sure, it technically solves the problem but it is less safe and less effective and costs more and we already have a much better solution we can use. Charitable and environmental orgs have limited funds so wasting money directly correlates to less good done in the world.

So the proposed alternative solutions in this video, with the exception of the river clean up, are political and social in nature, which is to say they could be implemented tomorrow but probably will take decades and are completly outside of the control of you, me and TeamSeas. It's like telling me I shouldn't pick up trash from the forest because the problem is way bigger than just a little trash on the surface while also telling me my solution is ineffiecent. Which is both true but instead of offering a viable alternative of what I could do instead you tell me the government should fix the problem, which is true in the long run but also nothing that I can really influence alone, making your argument worthless to me.

Mr Trash Wheel is a much better name.

@9:58 but they do say their interceptors need customizing, that each river and community is vastly different is what i remember TeamSeas showing in a documentary

I like what you're getting at in this video, I completely agree with you when you say the solution to plastics in our oceans is not letting them get there in the first place this is a point that even the Ocean Cleanup would agree with, however, I think you're missing the point of Team Seas; The project splits its donations 50/50 between the Ocean Conservancy and the Ocean Cleanup project, I believe this is intentional as the Ocean Conservancy is focused on stopping plastics getting into the ocean while the Ocean Cleanup focuses on removing plastics already in water systems heading to the ocean essentially creating a two-pronged solution to helping with plastic pollution. You attempt to discredit the Ocean Cleanup project by saying a majority of plastics are not on the river surfaces which although may be true is misleading as you never gave an alternative solution to the Ocean Project which would be able to effectively clear plastic debris on the bottom of rivers, all you've demonstrated is that the Ocean Cleanup interceptors won't get 100% of the plastics which is rather obvious. I also don't like how you took the Mark Rober clip out of context the gringo clip was clearly a joke put in the video by Mark Rober so either you didn't watch the video or you purposely took it out of context to further discredit Team Seas.

Well at least someone is doing something instead of literally nothing

Cool, the other people can go after other sources of pollution. Good grief, people will endlessly whine anytime something solves part of a problem

It's not the solution but it is helping, which is more than what a lot of people can say

This reminds me about a game mode in a fps shooter called storm, what happens is 1 team protects the command post and another atks it. It's best to block routs then to just sit inside the command posts for enemies to enter.

Yeah I dunno man... there will always be a "better solution" to everything. Criticizing a project because it isn't what experts would consider the best seems a bit petty in my opinion. If someone wants to do something good and market themselves at the same time then so be it. Everyone still wins even if everyone is not winning "the best"

I enjoyed this video and I generally think your content on environmental science, but I wish you had gone a bit more in depth on specific technologies or soloutions that can or have been implemented in specific scenarios. A lot of the talk surrounding better soloutions was pretty vague, so I feel like I still don't have a good idea of what those solutions are.

Even if/when you solve the problem at the source there will still be plastic in the water to clean up afterward and even if they are just a stop gap its better to stop it in small dense areas(rivers) than wait for it to disperse into the oceans harming more creatures and making clean up way harder

You keep saying it's best to stop plastic at the source. But I ask you, is it best to try to catch each individual raindrop, or just put a barrel below rain gutter? It's far more efficient to collect plaatic where it is already concentrated. Sure, building out a great sanitation network is a great goal, but it's one that's vastly out of reach for third world countries. But what's not out of reach is collecting the plastic that's already concentrated by the rivers.

In a video like this, going into detail of some examples of the highly functional methods would be super important in order to get credibility here It feels like you might have intentionally brushed past this because it might have been hard or not as great of a solution as you say

The focus on picking up plastic discounts companies who produce plastic. In itself, cleanup is needed but it's also needed for particles smalles than a 1mm.

Thank you for educating me, I will change my tactics when arguing for ecological initiatives in the future. ^_^ Keep up the great work friend.

"Cleaning others mess isn't good enough, you can just try to convince others not to make a mess in the first place, even if it wont lead anywhere" Oh sweet summer child...

wait up, i think what really needs to be said, is that ocean clean up are at least actually doing something. In my eyes taking trash out of the water is only a good thing. To criticise saying, oh this is futile etc seems silly as let's face it they still doing an amazing thing for the world. It could maybe do it better, sure! but also doing SOMETHING hopefully will inspire more to join and think of better more affective solutions!

I don't know. Watched both of your videos. Both of you make a good point but I truly don't think Mark Rober's efforts are futile. The system is messed up. Anyone who does anything to help, even the slightest bit, is on the right track. If everyone out there could simply stop littering (individuals and factories/companies), that is the #1 solution. But, we know how that goes.

All the criticism I see of Ocean Cleanup is like this, where it criticizes the efficiency and says it's not enough. But they are at least doing something, compared to all their critics that just want to keep arguing for an eternity while the oceans die.

I think very few of us can day we have done something as mindfully buying a can of drink instead of a disposable plastic bottle (nor that we will do so in future) so for now things like OC will be needed and I thank them for actively doing something, not just talking about it

Thank you so much. I work in environmentalism, and we see it so often: Experts from a variety of fields illuminate the complexity of the problem and point to a set of steps to be taken, mostly systemic changes at the beginning of the chain - and the along come some tech-bros, ignore all the scientists and arrogantly claim their one fancy gadget can solve it all at the end of the chain, and nothing else needs to be done, especially nothing systemic. And after all their ignoring of scientists from several fields, they themselves frustratingly invoke "science" to insulate themselves from critcism because, after all, their gadget came from science, right? Thank you especially for pointing out how crucial it is that something is not only informed by science as a product, but also in its usage.

I have question, I agree that looking at the issue in retrospect you can clearly spend this money better based on the evidence presented in this video. However I feel you may underrate the importance of marketing in this process. While the actual, in practice best solutions may not be so flamboyant they are simply worse from a marketing perspective and would have very likely generated less total money to work with against the problem. It may be depressing to see that we do need to market the research, but at the end of the day we need to make sure its practical, and marketing is a critical part in rallying the public behind respective solutions.

Hi Simon Clark, first of love your video. I am also Physics student perusing Masters Degree. Your video gives idea of different perspective and approaches. Can you pleases make video on Highways(Big Highways ) and their impacts on near by environments( Farmland and ecosystem). Keep making video for futures scientists.

Gosh! Never seen so much shade thrown at Ocean Cleanup. Sad. They're doing a fine job. Easier to be an armchair critic, than to go out and actually DO something. Right?

When the title said "didn't work" I was kinda expecting this thing catches NOTHING!!! Turns out can't just depend on "one neat trick"? Okay fine develop more solutions. I'm fine with having multiple solutions covering each other's weak points.