Benioff Ocean Initiative & The Coca-Cola Foundation Announce $11 Million in Funding to Clean Up Rivers & Stem Flow of Waste t...
January 15 2020 - 10:00AM
Business Wire
Nine river clean-up programs across the world have been selected
to receive a total of $11 million over the next three years as part
of a unique partnership between The Coca-Cola Foundation and the
Benioff Ocean Initiative at the University of California Santa
Barbara’s Marine Science Institute.
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The partnership combines The Coca-Cola Foundation’s commitment
to support behavioral-change projects regarding recycling and the
Benioff Ocean Initiative’s expertise in developing innovative ways
to collect and analyze waste from our rivers and oceans and address
the plastic crisis.
“The Coca-Cola Foundation is delighted to partner with the
Benioff Ocean Initiative and co-fund nine river clean-up programs,”
said Helen Smith Price, president of The Coca-Cola Foundation.
“This is an important global partnership for a truly global
challenge – cleaning up some of the world’s most polluted rivers
and identifying new ways to prevent plastic waste from entering our
rivers and oceans.
“The World Without Waste strategy of The Coca-Cola Company and
The Foundation’s focus on recycling and behavioral-change projects
highlight the need for greater collaboration between business,
governments, charitable organizations, researchers and NGOs to make
this happen. We believe projects such as these nine river clean-up
programs are a real and effective means of working together to
deliver real change around the world.”
The programs selected for funding span four continents: Asia,
Africa, North America and South America.
Dr. Douglas McCauley, Professor at UC Santa Barbara and Director
of the Benioff Ocean Initiative, said, “Scientists have made great
strides in identifying how important rivers are in carrying plastic
waste to the ocean. We are so thrilled to now use this research to
strategically mount an intervention to this global problem.”
Chancellor Henry T. Yang, UC Santa Barbara, said, “UC Santa
Barbara researchers, including Professor Douglas McCauley and his
team, are leaders in advancing scientific research on plastic
debris in the environment. Now we are advancing such scientific
research to address the growing problem of plastic waste, including
reducing the flow of plastics from rivers to oceans. We are most
grateful to The Coca-Cola Foundation for their vital support. Their
partnership with our campus and the Benioff Ocean Initiative will
positively impact communities in each of the project regions and
serve as a collaborative model to mitigate plastics pollution
globally.”
The Marea Verde project to clean up the Matias Hernandez River
in Panama is the first to be awarded funding, in recognition of its
innovative application of cutting-edge technology, creative and
comprehensive outreach strategy, and strong interdisciplinary
leadership team.
“Panama contributes to marine trash with an estimated 100,000
plus tons per year,” said Mirei Endara, co-founder of Marea Verde.
“Since October 2017, we have manually captured and prevented over
1,100 tons of trash from reaching the ocean just from the Matias
Hernandez watershed and river mouth. From the characterization
pilots carried out in our river site, we know that over 55% of this
trash is plastics.
“With this funding, we will be able to integrate technology and
artificial intelligence into our project, which will help us be
more effective in collecting trash at our river site, generate
pertinent data and develop the capacity to work with communities in
this watershed. Our ultimate goal is to provide best practices that
may be replicated in other watersheds in Panama and the world, in
an effort to positively impact the river plastic challenge.”
Eight other programs – in Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Ecuador,
Mexico, Thailand, Jamaica and Kenya – are also being finalized for
funding. Details of these, including the specific rivers and
locations, will be announced in the future. Each project will both
clean up the target polluted river and use data about the captured
waste to change behavior in people, local communities and
businesses.
“We are definitely excited about getting this plastic waste out
of our rivers and oceans,” Dr. McCauley remarked. “But we are also
excited to turn this plastic waste into data that can help us turn
off the tap of this waste in the first place.”
About The Coca-Cola
Foundation
The Coca-Cola Foundation is the global philanthropic arm of The
Coca-Cola Company. Since its inception in 1984, The Foundation has
awarded more than $1 billion in grants to support sustainable
community initiatives around the world. For more information about
The Coca-Cola Foundation, please visit:
www.coca-colacompany.com/our-company/the-coca-cola-foundation.
About Benioff Ocean
Initiative
Benioff Ocean Initiative, based at UC Santa Barbara’s Marine
Science Institute, merges science and technology to improve ocean
health. The initiative was brought to life in 2016 through a $10
million gift from Marc and Lynne Benioff to promote science-based
ocean problem solving at UC Santa Barbara. For more information
about Benioff Ocean Initiative, please visit:
https://boi.ucsb.edu/.
Background note for editors:
The programs were selected through a competitive request for
proposals process in which applicants were invited to submit ideas
for pilot projects to capture river plastics. Each proposal was
required to describe how the data collected by the river plastic
waste capture system could be used to inspire broader action on
plastic pollution. Benioff Ocean Initiative will oversee
on-the-ground delivery of each river clean-up program, working
closely with local partners. Collected plastic waste will not only
be recycled or repurposed where possible, but the information
gathered from each program will also be shared broadly, so that
others can apply learnings to future projects. Conversations about
initiating a river plastics interception project began with a
research symposium held at UC Santa Barbara in 2018. The event
brought together world experts in hydrology, industrial ecology,
watershed governance and riverine engineering, as well as thought
leaders from non-governmental organizations and the private
industry. The collaboration between The Coca-Cola Foundation and
Benioff Ocean Initiative emerged as a result of those
discussions.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200115005143/en/
The Coca-Cola Company: Ronan Farren, ronanfarren@coca-cola.com
Benioff Ocean Initiative: Shelly Leachman,
shelly.leachman@ucsb.edu
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