Date | October 29, 2021 – July 17, 2024 |
---|---|
Type | Fundraiser |
Cause | Marine pollution |
Budget | $33.79 million |
Organized by | |
Website | teamseas |
Team Seas (stylized as #TEAMSEAS) was an international collaborative fundraiser that was started by YouTubers MrBeast and Mark Rober as a follow-up to Team Trees. The fundraiser succeeded in raising over 33 million U.S. dollars. All of the donations from the fundraiser went to the Ocean Conservancy and The Ocean Cleanup, with the organisations splitting the donations. The fundraiser pledged to remove 30,000,000 pounds (14,000,000 kg) of marine debris from the ocean by removing 1 pound (0.45 kg) of marine debris from the ocean for every 1 dollar donated. [1]
The preceding fundraiser, Team Trees, was started on October 25, 2019, by MrBeast and Mark Rober. They set to raise 20 million dollars, which was achieved. [2] As of the start date of Team Seas, donations are still able to be made on the Team Trees website and planting progress is updated there. [2] As of 11 August 2024 [update] , $34,080,191 has been raised. [3]
Team Seas aimed to remove 30,000,000 pounds (14,000,000 kg) of marine debris from the ocean by the end of 2021 by raising 30 million dollars, with one pound removed for every dollar donated. [1] [2] The project was mass released over the internet on many different social media platforms on Friday October 29, 2021, at 1 PM (PT). On YouTube, thousands of creators from 145 countries, with a combined follow count of 1 billion, created videos about the fundraiser. [4] [5]
On November 1, 2021, Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify, donated $1,200,001, exceeding the $1,000,001 he donated to Team Trees. [6] [7]
On 10 May 2023, Donaldson, Rober, and the Team Seas twitter account jointly reported that the campaign was halfway done, and that 112,000 volunteers had cleaned 15.1 million pounds of waste in 63 countries. [8]
On 17 July 2024, through an announcement uploaded to YouTube, the duo announced that the project has been completed, and acknowledged the myriad of creators that partook in promoting it. [9] [10]
The Arbor Day Foundation is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees. The Arbor Day Foundation has more than one million members and has planted more than 500 million trees in neighborhoods, communities, cities and forests throughout the world. The Foundation's stated mission is "to inspire people to plant, nurture, and celebrate trees."
Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created solid material that has deliberately or accidentally been released in seas or the ocean. Floating oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and on coastlines, frequently washing aground, when it is known as beach litter or tidewrack. Deliberate disposal of wastes at sea is called ocean dumping. Naturally occurring debris, such as driftwood and drift seeds, are also present. With the increasing use of plastic, human influence has become an issue as many types of (petrochemical) plastics do not biodegrade quickly, as would natural or organic materials. The largest single type of plastic pollution (~10%) and majority of large plastic in the oceans is discarded and lost nets from the fishing industry. Waterborne plastic poses a serious threat to fish, seabirds, marine reptiles, and marine mammals, as well as to boats and coasts.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a garbage patch, a gyre of marine debris particles, in the central North Pacific Ocean. It is located roughly from 135°W to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N. The collection of plastic and floating trash originates from the Pacific Rim, including countries in Asia, North America, and South America.
Ocean Conservancy is a nonprofit environmental advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., United States. The organization seeks to promote healthy and diverse ocean ecosystems, prevent marine pollution, climate change and advocates against practices that threaten oceanic and human life.
Marine conservation activism is the efforts of non-governmental organizations and individuals to bring about social and political change in the area of marine conservation. Marine conservation is properly conceived as a set of management strategies for the protection and preservation of ecosystems in oceans and seas. Activists raise public awareness and support for conservation, while pushing governments and corporations to practice sound ocean management, create conservation policy, and enforce existing laws and policy through effective regulation. There are many different kinds of organizations and agencies that work toward these common goals. They all are a part of the growing movement that is ocean conservation. These organizations fight for many causes including stopping pollution, overfishing, whaling and by-catching, and supporting marine protected areas.
Tern Island is a coral island located near French Frigate Shoals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It is in the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge. It is approximately 490 miles west-northwest of Oahu.
Marine plastic pollution is a type of marine pollution by plastics, ranging in size from large original material such as bottles and bags, down to microplastics formed from the fragmentation of plastic material. Marine debris is mainly discarded human rubbish which floats on, or is suspended in the ocean. Eighty percent of marine debris is plastic. Microplastics and nanoplastics result from the breakdown or photodegradation of plastic waste in surface waters, rivers or oceans. Recently, scientists have uncovered nanoplastics in heavy snow, more specifically about 3,000 tons that cover Switzerland yearly.
Mr. Trash Wheel is a trash interceptor that removes trash from the Jones Falls river as it empties into the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland. It is powered by a water wheel and solar cells, and rakes trash from the harbor onto an onboard conveyor belt which routes it into a dumpster on the vessel. Mr. Trash Wheel was invented by John Kellett in 2008, who launched a pilot vessel at that time. A larger vessel was later developed; it replaced the pilot vessel and was launched in May 2014. The Mr. Trash Wheel vessel is part of the Waterfront Partnership of the City of Baltimore's "Healthy Harbor Initiative".
The Ocean Cleanup is a nonprofit environmental engineering organization based in the Netherlands that develops technology to extract plastic pollution from the oceans and to capture it in rivers before it can reach the ocean. 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.
Mark Rober is an American YouTuber, engineer, inventor, and educator. He is known for his YouTube videos on popular science and do-it-yourself gadgets. Before he became a YouTuber, Rober was an engineer with NASA for nine years, where he spent seven years working on the Curiosity rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He later worked for four years at Apple Inc. as a product designer in their Special Projects Group, where he authored patents involving virtual reality in self-driving cars.
A YouTuber is a type of content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006, and subsequently appeared in the 2006 Time Person of the Year issue.
4Ocean is a for-profit company founded in Boca Raton, Florida, in 2017. 4Ocean retails bracelets made from recycled materials, as well as apparel and other merchandise for which the materials are environmentally- and socially responsibly sourced.
James Stephen "Jimmy" Donaldson, better known by his online alias MrBeast, is an American YouTuber, internet personality, and businessman. He is known for his fast-paced and high-production videos featuring elaborate challenges and lucrative giveaways. With over 330 million subscribers, he has the most subscribers of any YouTube channel, and is the third-most-followed creator on TikTok with over 104 million followers. He also has over 60 million followers on Instagram and 30.9 million on X.
Jaiden Dittfach is an American YouTuber and animator known for her story-time animations channel, Jaiden Animations. She made videos on a variety of topics, spanning from her experiences to personal stories. She now primarily creates videos centered around video game stories.
Team Trees is a collaborative fundraiser that raised 20 million U.S. dollars before the start of 2020 to plant 20 million trees. The initiative was started by American YouTubers MrBeast and Mark Rober, and was mostly supported by YouTubers. All donations go to the Arbor Day Foundation, a tree planting organization that pledges to plant one tree for every U.S. dollar donated. The Arbor Day Foundation began planting in January 2020 with plans to end "no later than December 2022". It is estimated that 23 million trees would take up 210 km2 (81 sq mi) of land, absorb around 1.6 million tons of carbon and remove 116 thousand tons of pollutants from the atmosphere.
Jean-Michel Lemieux is the former chief technology officer of Shopify.
Lachlan Ross Power is an Australian YouTuber, professional gamer and internet personality, known primarily for his video game commentaries of Fortnite Battle Royale. He is the founder of lifestyle brand and gaming organization PWR.
The 11th Annual Streamy Awards was the eleventh installment of the Streamy Awards honoring the best in American streaming television series and their creators. The ceremony was held on December 11, 2021, hosted by Larray and livestreamed exclusively to YouTube. Larray hosted the show from a party bus in Los Angeles alongside special guest Issa Twaimz. The show continued the Creator Honor awards, introduced the previous year, which featured past Streamy award winners presenting the award to creators that resonated with them in 2021. It also featured sneak-peaks of YouTube videos by creators such as Dixie D'Amelio, Lexi Rivera, RDCWorld, Safiya Nygaard, and ZHC, including a preview of Markiplier's YouTube Originals interactive special In Space with Markiplier. MrBeast's Team Seas fundraising initiative to clean oceans, rivers and beaches was highlighted during a special segment of the show.
Nicholas Channing DiGiovanni is an American celebrity chef and influencer. DiGiovanni has over 40 million followers across his social media accounts.
TierZoo is an educational web series and YouTube channel created and hosted by Patrick "Patch" Lacey. The series discusses animal-related topics such as wildlife ecology and evolutionary biology through a video gaming lens. It utilizes terminology and visuals that are prominent in video game culture and presents topics as if animals are players and the environments they live in are gaming servers.