LBS research in action: accelerating oceans clean up with data and algorithms

Increasing plastic emissions are irreversibly harming our environment. Every year, millions of tonnes of new plastic are emitted into the ocean. To tackle ocean plastic pollution, Jean Pauphilet, Assistant Professor of Management Science and Operations at London Business School, and his PhD student Baizhi Song have been collaborating with Dutch NGO The Ocean Cleanup.

For over ten years, The Ocean Cleanup has been researching, extracting and monitoring plastic pollution in oceans and rivers globally. The NGO has removed thousands of tons to date and has a mission to clean up 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040. Game-changing new technology that resembles a gigantic fishing net captures the plastic. As it moves through the water, plastic is collected in a huge retention zone, later to be transformed into durable new products.

Baizhi and Dr Pauphilet have been working with The Ocean Cleanup to increase the efficiency of their operation by designing a better steering strategy. Their research integrated large amounts of data on weather forecasts and plastic dispersion dynamics into a real-time routing algorithm. By anticipating the locations and movement of the plastic, their algorithm dynamically guides the collection system towards the highest-density areas, increasing weekly collection by over 60%.

You can read about our research into accelerating the clean up of our oceans in Think at London Business School.