It’s estimated that approximately 171 trillion pieces of plastic are floating in our oceans around the globe, not including the amount that has sunk beneath the surface.

While everyone is still trying to find the best way to combat plastic pollution, YouTubers Mark Rober and Mr Beast teamed up with the two of the largest ocean conservation organizations in the US, Ocean Conservancy and the Ocean Cleanup, and created a fundraising campaign named ‘TeamSeas’. They successfully encouraged millions to donate and cleaned up 17,000 tons of ocean trash.

More info: TeamSeas

TeamSeas, led by famous YouTubers Mr Beast and Mark Rober, managed to clean up 17,000 tons of trash from our oceans and rivers

Image credits: TeamSeas

Image credits: Ocean Conservancy

Image credits: TeamSeas

The project TeamSeas was launched in October 2021 and since then has connected content creators from 145 countries with more than 1 billion followers to clean up our oceans and rivers.

All collected funds were distributed to the two non-profit organizations: The Ocean Cleanup and Ocean Conservancy.

“TeamSeas fits perfectly into our mission to rid the oceans of plastic and we’re honored to be part of this campaign. The donations raised from this campaign will help us implement more Interceptors around the world and curb the flow of riverine plastic into the oceans,” explained Boyan Slat, Founder and CEO at The Ocean Cleanup. “Our mission is one of global proportion, therefore it’s crucial that we amplify our message.”

Using social media as a tool for environmental action, TeamSeas reached astounding results not only by removing 17,000 tons of trash from the world’s oceans and rivers but also by spreading awareness about the pollution problem all over the world.

“TeamSeas is proof that when a huge amount of people get together to help make things better on this planet, big things can happen and we can’t wait to do the next big thing together with you,” shared Mr Beast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson and who started posting videos on YouTube at the age of 12. “We have officially cleaned all 34,080,191 pounds of trash and plastic out of the oceans and rivers all across the world! That’s 4 million pounds over our original goal and 100% verified by an independent third party.”

Over 1000 influencers from 145 countries joined TeamSeas’ initiative

Image credits: Ocean Conservancy

TeamSeas is not the first successful environmental project that Donaldson has come up with. Back in 2019 when his YouTube channel hit 20 million subscribers, one of the followers suggested that Donaldson could celebrate it by ‘saving the earth for once’. Therefore, the famous YouTuber connected with one of his colleagues and former NASA engineer Mark Rober at the time and, with the help of the Arbor Day Foundation, launched the TeamTrees campaign.

Since the official launch of the campaign, it has raised over 24 million, with the largest donation from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who gave $1 million to the project, which brought even more public attention to the campaign.

As of 2022, TeamTrees had already planted more than 23,000,000 trees around the world, including the United States, Canada, Haiti, Nicaragua, Kenya, Madagascar, Indonesia, and Nepal.

“We are incredibly proud to be the official planting partner for TeamTrees. Mr Beast, Mark, and hundreds of other YouTube creators shared our vision of building a better world through tree planting. They used their platforms to inspire more than half a million individuals to take action for our environment,” shared Dan Lambe, president of the Arbor Day Foundation, at the time.

“We took over the internet to plant 20 million trees and now 20 million trees are in the ground! This is more than just hashtag activism,” Donaldson added.

With the help of social media content, TeamSeas raised awareness about the importance of ridding the oceans of plastic

Image credits: Ocean Conservancy

Image credits: Ocean Conservancy

Image credits: TeamSeas

Oceans are one of the most important ecosystems on the planet, yet every year, about 11 million tons of plastic waste escapes into waters. According to a new study, nearly 1,300 different marine species have been documented with plastics in their bodies and if the situation doesn’t change, most fish species will be extinct by 2048.

Maybe such initiatives as TeamSeas are not a silver bullet for global plastic pollution and climate change, yet it’s becoming crucial to take collective action in order to make a remarkable positive impact on our planet and save it for future generations.

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