OPDERA – Ocean Plastic Debris Education Research and Awareness

A nonprofit organization, 501(c)(3), is dedicated to raising awareness about plastic debris in the world’s oceans. 

We do this through social and community education, conducting research and collecting data during voyages to The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and working with other like-minded organizations. We collect data from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in various manners to help researchers and research organizations obtain the information they need to conduct this critical research.

OPDERA provides water samples from different depths, marine life specimens, weather, and sea state conditions, skimming the ocean at different depths and locations, placing satellite trackers on larger debris to track movements caused by weather and currents, placing organic sample tiles on debris to test the impact of toxins leaching from plastic and how early biological lifeforms are affected by these toxins. We provide these specimens to research organizations who desperately need access to data and biological specimens collected onsite in The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, GPGP. Organizations such as The Smithsonian Institute, NOAA, NASA, The University of Hawaii, The University of Washington, and others have all had their research benefit from data and specimens we have collected from The High Seas. We make the data we collect and the research results freely available to anyone interested in receiving it.

The environmental disaster taking place in the world’s oceans, right before our eyes, is of catastrophic proportions. Solutions to this disaster will only come when millions of people, conducting self-education to understand the truth of what is out there and where it came from, mobilize to save our oceans.

We provide data, education, and resources to raise awareness of this disaster and mobilize the millions of people needed to correct this course of ocean destruction and begin to repair our oceans.

Please help us:

• Use our resources to educate yourself.
• Raise awareness by spreading the word.
• Contribute to this cause.
• Take the OPDERA Pledge.