Norway has the second longest beachline on the planet, if we count all beachline around islands and the fjords – about 100 000 km – which is about 12% of the worlds total beachline.
The longest coastline is Canada, with 200 000 km, and as number three you’ll find Indonesia with about 50 000 km.
Nr. 10 is New Zealand with 15 000 km, nr. 20 is India with 7 000 km, nr. 50 is Panama with 2000 km.
Can we clean the whole planet?
Given that the same capacity and methods that we are using in Norway were made available for other countries, and the efficiency is the same as in Norway, this is a few examples of how much time we would need to clean the coastline of each country:
| Country | Time needed to clean it all |
| Canada | 10 years |
| Indonesia | 3 years |
| Australia | 1.3 years |
| New Zealand | 7 months |
| United Kingdome | 7 months |
| Denmark | 4 months |
| Iceland | 3 months |
| Sweden | 2 months |
What number of volunteers would we need?
For our Norwegian operation, we are at the maximum about 35 long term volunteers at the same time. We already have a waitinglist of thousands of young adults, that would like to spend 3 months of more of their time, to clean beaches.
This means, that if we could provide the necessary tools and facilities, there would be enough volunteer labor available to clean the whole planet.
Can we make it happen for real?
Yes, it’s possible to clean the whole planet, but it’s a complex operation that depends on broad collaboration between governments, industries and actors. In some areas, the In The Same Boat method will be the most efficient, in other areas we would need to use other types of technology and logistics, that is already available from other organizations.
Our speciality is operations in pristine and unavailable areas with vulnerable nature, and we are more than ready to scale. All we need is funding to cover our costs of running the teams.
In the big picture, the cost of cleaning up is barely noticable for the industries that rely on a healthy and thriving ocean, but everyone has to take their part and their responsibility.
Let’s make it happen!