2024 action plan: milestones and challenges for The SeaCleaners

As soon as the year began, our teams were on deck in Paimpol, the town where the Mobula small boats for clean-up operations in calm waters are built, for five days of tests on the two latest additions to our fleet: the Mobula 8.2, an enhanced version of the Mobula 8 currently in Bali (Indonesia), and our first Mobula 10 – the Mobula 8’s big brother, with a 10-meter wingspan and the ability to operate in areas further from the coast.

Conclusion of this technical week: the two boats, after the final adjustments scheduled over the coming weeks, will hit the road in the course of 2024, with two new areas of operation as their final destinations: Malaysia, in the state of Sabah at Kota Kinabalu, and Ambon Bay in Indonesia.

On the operational side, our teams are also hard at work preparing the arrival of our two boats in these territories: meeting with the players who will enable us to collect waste in aquatic environments and setting up local partnerships to develop the awareness-raising and scientific research programs associated with all our collection actions.

Local authorities, maritime and environmental authorities, waste managers, companies, schools – these are just some of the people we met at the end of 2023 and again at the beginning of the month, with a view to our deployment in 2024.

This year will also see the commissioning of our mobile conversion unit, which will accompany our Mobula on land to process the waste collected, but which will also be able to process waste collected on land or brought in by other players.

Finally, to intensify our collection activities, a new Mobula 8 will be under construction in the second half of the year. This fleet of 4 clean-up vessels will be deployed in 2 countries and, in addition to taking concrete, localized action against plastic pollution, its mission will be to prepare the Manta’s missions, both by testing collection equipment and by exploring several potential areas of operation.

For the Manta’s project, 2024 will be the long-awaited year to discover the shipyard that will be selected for its construction! We can’t wait to find out and, above all, to reveal its name.

And, as every year, we’ll be on the ground to continue raising awareness and calling for action, from classrooms to the highest international bodies, in the fight against plastic pollution!

As an observer member of the United Nations Environment Programme and a member of the Innovation Alliance for a Global Plastic Treaty, we’ll be at the table for the fourth round of negotiations for a global treaty against plastic pollution, and we’ll be keen to defend an ambitious, legally binding proposal.

As part of the World Water Forum to be held in Bali from May 18 to 24, The SeaCleaners will also be present alongside the French authorities.

Finally, we’ve got a big scoop for you: our association The SeaCleaners has become an observer member of the IPCC. We’ll tell you more next month about what this role entails and our participation in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

If 2023 was truly the year of global awareness of the consequences of plastic pollution, 2024 will be crucial in the international organization of the fight against this scourge.
Our ambitions match those of the treaty: to put an end to plastic pollution by 2040. Let’s roll up our sleeves!