Their initial focus was on the Pacific Ocean and its garbage patch, and extended to rivers in countries including Indonesia, Guatemala, and the United States.

[6] The project aims to launch 10 or more approximately 2 km-long (1.2 mi) systems which they predict could remove 50% of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch five years from deployment.

The initial design consisted of long, floating barriers fixed to the seabed, attached to a central platform shaped like a manta ray for stability.

[23][25] The test indicated that conventional oil containment booms would not stand up over time, and they changed the floater material to a hard-walled HDPE pipe.

[26] In May 2017, significant changes to the conceptual design were made:[25] Tests in 2018[31] led to sea anchors being removed, and the opening of the U turned to face the direction of travel, by creating more drag in the middle with a deeper underwater screen.

[32][33] On 9 September 2018, System 001 (nicknamed Wilson in reference to the floating volleyball in the 2000 film Cast Away)[34][7] deployed from San Francisco.

The ship Maersk Launcher towed the system to a position 240 nautical miles off the coast, where it was put through a series of sea trials.

[59] In July 2022, an Interceptor Original was deployed near the mouth of Ballona Creek in southwestern Los Angeles County, California.

The system included a retention zone where material is held before it is removed from the water, with the nets' mesh size there being increased from 10 to 15 mm.

This is to allow marine life such as fish and turtles to escape, and to allow smaller creatures such as blue buttons and violet snails to pass through.

That’s why we knocked off one of the zeroes from ‘002’ when we named ‘03’ – we no longer need a three-figure amount of systems to clean all five ocean garbage patches around the world.

[62] In July 2022, the floating system reached the milestone of 100,000 kg of plastic removed from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Along with an optimized water flow path, a barrier guides rubbish towards the opening of the Interceptor and onto the conveyor belt, which delivers waste to the shuttle.

[71][72] The Interceptor Barricade developed for Rio Las Vacas in 2023 was the first model designed for very high-throughput rivers that may carry 10,000 kg of trash a day.

[82] In February 2015, the research team published a study in Biogeosciences about the vertical distribution of plastic, based on samples collected in the North Atlantic Gyre.

[84] In June 2017, researchers published a paper in Nature Communications, with a model of the river plastic input into the ocean.

Their model estimates that between 1.15 and 2.41 million metric tons of plastic enter the world's oceans every year, with 86% of the input stemming from rivers in Asia.

They argue that debris circulation dynamics offer an explanation for this missing plastic and suggest that there is a significant amount of time between initial emissions and accumulation offshore.

[89] A follow-up study in May 2020 showed that part of the plastic at the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is breaking down into microplastics and sinking to the deep sea.

[93] As of 2019, it was mainly funded by donations and in-kind sponsors, including Maersk, Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff, Peter Thiel, Julius Baer Foundation, The Coca-Cola Company and Royal DSM.

They worked with DNV GL to develop a certification for plastic from water sources and the sunglasses were certified to originate from the GPGP.

[99] In October 2021, they were part of the #TeamSeas fundraising campaign led by YouTube stars Mark Rober and MrBeast, and received roughly half of the $30 million raised.

In 2022, Kia signed a seven-year deal to become a global partner of The Ocean Cleanup through funding and in-kind contributions.

[100] In early 2023 the organization received its largest private donation to date of $25 million from Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb.

A modelling study concluded that it is currently impossible to determine how damaging at-sea plastic removal strategies (such as those of The Ocean Cleanup) would be for marine life, with impacts potentially ranging from mild to severe.