Plastic Everywhere

Challenge

In June 2019, in the largest Pacific clean up to date, Ocean Voyages Institute removed more than 40 tons of discarded ghost fishing nets during a 25-day expedition. These massive nylon or polypropylene nets weighing tons drift for decades, amassing plastic debris, ensnaring wildlife, and even entangling ships.

OVI’s Founder and Executive Director Mary T. Crowley presented Eleanor Kerlow PR with the challenge of promoting the expedition and its results.

Strategy

Eleanor Kerlow PR put together a strategy that involved explaining OVI’s ghost net removal at press conferences in Hawaii and California, a social media campaign to raise awareness, and an announcement of a bigger 2020 effort.

The day the sailing cargo ship arrived in Honolulu, Crowley and Ocean Voyages provided on-site tours to news crews. The crews filmed the giant ghost nets being unloaded and the specially designed GPS satellite trackers used to locate nets. Crowley appeared on TV and radio shows over several days immediately after the ship’s return and even weeks later.

Impact

Crowley and OVI’s ghost net removal in 2019, and a record-setting clean-up of 103 tons (206,000 lbs.) in 2020, on which Eleanor Kerlow PR led media relations, generated local, domestic and international feature coverage, including: CNN, Associated Press, The Weather Channel, Khon2, KITV4abc, Hawaii News Now, KPIX5cbs SF and LA, Hawaii Public Radio, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Australian Broadcasting Corp., Latitude38, Global Citizen, Sierra Magazine, Kpbs, USA Science News, Univision, Telemundo and much more. The coverage was amplified by international social media endorsements.

Ocean Voyages Institute has received multiple speaking invitations and requests to partner on plastics and ghost net removal and research in Hawaii and around the globe. OVI received funding for its expanded 2020 mission, entered into new collaborations, moved into other regions, and embarked on larger cleanups in 2021 and 2022. OVI, in 2023, is launching an effort to build more sailing cargo ships to expand its operations.

Having removed nearly 1 million pounds of consumer debris and discarded ghost nets, OVI is now considered a world leader in open ocean cleanups and has proven its methods are scalable.

Eleanor Kerlow PR continues to work with OVI on strategic counsel, media relations, interview preparation, social media, and fundraising support.