Back in 2019, the popular YouTube creator, Mr. Beast created Team Trees to fundraise $20 million for 20 million trees before 2020. To no surprise, he and his fans successfully accomplished that goal, and people still donate to the cause today However, Mr. Beast is now back with former NASA engineer and current YouTube creator, Mark Rober, to collect 30 million pounds of trash from oceans, rivers, and beaches by collecting $30 million before 2022. The current campaign is named Team Seas and has already removed about 15 million pounds of trash from the ocean. 

Aside from picking up the trash by hand, via beach cleanups, which would take an extremely long time, there are huge machines called Interceptors that go against the current in rivers and pick up the trash that stands in its way. According to teamseas.org, professional crews are going to beaches to pick up trash and safely host events with the help of the largest beach clean up organization, International Coastal Cleanup. The Ocean Cleanup has Interceptors already in rivers across the globe collecting trash and plastic. From theoceancleanup.com, the Interceptors are 100% solar-powered and connected to the internet which allows the company to gather information on its performance. The way it works is not too complicated, to collect waste, there is a barrier guiding the trash up river on to the conveyor belt that takes the trash to shuttle that uses data to dump it in the six different bins to make them all equal. When all six bins are filled, the Interceptor sends a signal to the local operators and they take the trash to a local trash facility and give the bins back to the Interceptor. Most people may be wondering why clean the ocean when climate change is almost just as big of a problem.

Cleaning the ocean will not only help aquatic life but also the atmosphere because almost 11 million metric tons of trash contribute to climate change every year. According to teamseas.org, it contributes because the plastics have certain harmful chemicals in them that are also found in fossil fuels, natural gas liquids, and coal. The oceans, rivers, and beaches all over the world have over almost 800 times more waste than the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. To help lower the amount of waste in the ocean and rivers around the world, go to teamseas.org and either check the website out, buy some of the Team Seas merchandise, look at the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), or even donate. Just one dollar would take one pound of trash out of the ocean, which would be one more fish in the ocean. 

Overall, if Team Seas reaches their goal of $30 million to take 30 million pounds of trash out of the ocean, that is 30 million pounds of trash that will be out of the ocean and not being ingested by aquatic life and some land organisms. Again, we are halfway to the ultimate goal of 30 million pounds of trash, with around 15 million pounds of trash removed from the ocean. Tell friends and family about Team Seas so we can reach 30 million and save the ocean and make Mr. Beast, Mark Rober, and Mother Nature proud.