Plastic Everywhere

Challenge

In 2020, Ocean Voyages Institute completed the largest open-ocean cleanup in history—recovering and upcycling, recycling and repurposing some 340,000 pounds (170 tons) of plastics from the Pacific.

OVI’s Founder and Executive Director Mary T. Crowley enlisted Eleanor Kerlow PR to promote the expedition and its results.

Strategy

Eleanor Kerlow PR developed a strategy that included press conferences in Hawaii and California to explain OVI’s ghost net removal process, a social media campaign to raise awareness, and additional media coverage of expansion plans.

The day the sailing cargo ship arrived in Honolulu, Crowley and Ocean Voyages provided on-site tours to news crews. The crews filmed the giant ghost nets being unloaded and the specially designed GPS satellite trackers used to locate nets. Crowley appeared on TV and radio shows over several days immediately after the ship’s return and even weeks later.

Impact

Crowley and OVI’s 2020 record-setting clean-up, on which Eleanor Kerlow PR led media relations, generated local, domestic and international feature coverage, including: CNN, Associated Press, The Weather Channel, Khon2, KITV4abc, Hawaii News Now, KPIX5cbs SF and LA, Hawaii Public Radio, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Australian Broadcasting Corp., Latitude38, Global Citizen, Sierra Magazine, Kpbs, USA Science News, Univision, Telemundo and hundreds of other outlets. The coverage was amplified by international social media endorsements.

Ocean Voyages Institute has received multiple speaking invitations and requests to partner on plastics and ghost net removal and research in Hawaii and around the globe. OVI entered into new collaborations and embarked on larger cleanups in 2021 and 2022. In 2023, OVI launched an effort to design custom-built sailing cargo ships to expand its operations.

Having removed nearly 1 million pounds of consumer debris and discarded ghost nets, OVI is now considered a world leader in open ocean cleanups and has proven its methods are scalable.

Eleanor Kerlow PR continues to work with OVI on strategy, media relations, interview preparation, social media, and fundraising support.