We Removed 25 MILLION Pounds of Trash from the Ocean!

When we first started, it was such a small operation. Like literally, we started out in a small office above a Brooklyn water bagel coffee shop, just Andrew and I. We honestly didn't really know what to expect. We didn't know if we were gonna remove 500 pounds, 10,000 pounds, 100,000 pounds, we had no clue. Starting with basically nothing, with the money that we used to fund ourselves to start the business, that first year and a half hitting a million pounds, we said, wow, this is amazing progress, this is incredible, how far can we take this? So we funded the growth for the ocean cleanup operations through the sale of our bracelets. When people learned about the 4ocean bracelet and the fact that it's made from recycled materials and for everyone sold, we remove one pound of trash from the ocean, it just caught on. Two Florida guys with a great idea, simply these little bracelets. 4ocean's an ocean cleanup company that Andrew and I started about three years ago. We were on a surfing trip in Bali, Indonesia, saw crazy amounts of plastic on the coastline in the ocean and we wanted to do something about it. Rather than starting a charity begging for money, they started a business. So we started here in Florida, hired our first captains, our crews, trained the captains and really just developed the system and then we expanded into Bali and so we pulled the million pounds from both Florida and Bali. Seeing here a few years later that we're picking up momentum year after year after year and getting to 25 million in just five years, it's mental. Never ever would I thought we'd reach this milestone this soon in the entire lifespan of the business. It's hard to wrap your mind around. If you were to picture that volume of plastic and trash and debris removed from the ocean, it's football fields upon football fields upon football fields of plastic. A business model like 4ocean impacts local communities because we're able to create jobs. We're able to hire people full time to clean plastic out of the ocean through selling a product. You know, selling a product made from recycled materials that not only raises awareness about the ocean plastic crisis, but it's creating local economies. This is an incredible milestone to reach 25 million pounds, but we're not only focused on the problems, but also the solutions. We need to fix systems, not just symptoms. What we really wanna do is focus on the upstream efforts. So we wanna leverage these platforms that we've built on social media, these partners that we're able to get. We just recently launched our partnership program and what that is, is really being able to influence large corporations, large brands and provide them guidance on how to really operate their businesses more sustainably. We're reaching this incredible milestone of 25 million pounds because of everyone. Everyone that supported 4ocean that's been a part of it, whether they shared a video online or they purchased a bracelet, purchased a product. We see the stickers on everybody's car. Because of them, we've been able to pull 25 million pounds of trash from the ocean.