Protecting the oceans: Ogyre’s challenge is to recover 40,000 kilos of waste from the sea and coastlines within a month
The challenge is to collect 40,000 kilos of marine and coastal litter throughout June. This is the goal of the Ocean Challenge 2026, launched by Ogyre, the global network of Fishing for Litter, which is dedicated to recovering marine litter through at-sea collection campaigns and interception initiatives along coastlines. All this is achieved through the financial and logistical support of local waste-fishing communities in Italia, Brazil, Indonesia and Senegal. This is important work, as ‘With World Oceans Day (8 June) the international community is called upon every year to reflect and actively contribute to the protection of the seas – as Ogyre emphasises – and the ocean produces at least 50% of the planet’s oxygen, is home to most of the Earth’s biodiversity and is the main source of protein for over a billion people worldwide’.
A concrete initiative
“The health of our seas is an issue that will eventually take its toll on us all if we don’t take concrete action right away,” comments Antonio Augeri, co-founder of Ogyre. “With the Ocean Challenge, we want to bring as many people, institutions and businesses on board as possible in a single month, but Ogyre’s mission goes far beyond one-off events: from 2021, we will be cleaning up the oceans every day thanks to the support of visionary partners who have not stood idly by.”
11,000 kilos already collected
The initiative, which has so far collected more than 11,000 kilos of waste, has been joined by over 60 companies and brings together brands and individuals in what has been dubbed a shared challenge: ‘to collect as much waste as possible from the ocean and coastal areas in June’. This work has seen significant growth over time, with fleets operating across Italia, Indonesia, Brazil and Senegal. Since the start of the initiative, Ogyre and its network have already helped to clean up the seas and coastlines of almost 1.5 million kilos of waste, “employing over 120 local fishermen on their vessels, paying them daily wages three times higher than the minimum wage”.
