THE OCEAN CLEANUP:
​100% of the machine 24 h per day
Cost: 317 million Dollars
Cleans 0,02% of what is added
Today's paradigm: What I do does not make a difference

THE POWER OF ONE:
25% of the people one second per day
Cost: none. Cost savings: Billions
Cleans 100% of what is added
New paradigm: What I do makes a difference

If you get the impression that we ridicule 'THE OCEAN CLEANUP', the opposite is true. We think doing something small is the most important thing! Only by doing something small the right side of the above can become reality.

Make the world a better place in one second.

Would you do it? 

Of course.

If you believe it can be done.

People are worried about the world: global warming, finite resources, plastic soup.
Unfortunately, we believe that what we can do is too small to make a difference.
Have you cleaned up one piece of litter today?

Why not?
Do you think it's too little?​

Why you should:

• You do something instead of nothing. In the whole universe there is no greater difference than between something and nothing
• It only takes one second
• you know for shure this piece of plastic will not enter the food chain
• You inspire others to follow your example, because it's doable
• If nice people clean up one piece a day the litter problem would be solved
• We will then save millions of dollars, euros and pounds
• We'll be world news: "We Cleaned The Whole Earth In A Week. How? Everyone Picked Up One Piece!

Great, but that's not what we're all about. Something much more important happens.
The most important thing is that we finally realise:

Nothing is too small to make the greatest difference!

Once we realise this, we and all coming generations will have a bright future.

The movie at the top of this page shows how much we can clean up per second. This can already be achieved if only people who want future generations to inherit a habitable planet cleaning up one piece a day. We do not need all the people. Not the people who say: 'This will never succeed anyway'. Or "I didn't drop that". Or "the municipality should clean it up". No, we only need people who have empathy for someone else. A person like YOU.

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We once did an experiment to find out how powerful it can be when people clean up one piece. We went to one of the most polluted places we could find. In the movie above you can see the result of this experiment.

Do you want to help us to spread this message?

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How do we go about?

We are making a new 'Trojan horse'.
Many people do not want to be reached with information about sustainability. An expensive government campaign often has a range of only 2 to 3%. The people of Troy did not want to be reached either. An army of 10.000 tried it for ten years. The gate remained closed. A huge statue opened the Trojan Gate in just one day.

With the twelve-metre-long statue, now in production, we are going to open the gates to their hearts. Our statue contains a hidden, heart-warming message.

Plastic Madonna

How did we get the raw materials?

For such a large statue we needed about 2500 kilos of plastic litter. On my own I could clean up about 500 kilos in a year. Why not make use of 'the power of one'? We installed 200 collection bins throughout the Netherlands and asked people if they wanted to clean up one piece of litter and donate it to us.
Instead of five years, it took only a few seconds of all the people who participated. 

In this manner, this quantity has been collected:

100.000 littered bottles saved from the Plastic Soup

WHY

Humanity is extremely powerful. We are destroying the habitbility  of planet Earth. Can we use this power in a positive way?

Yes, we can!  

WHERE

We will come to you. First we will 'conquer' the Netherlands. After that we shall visit all the mayor cities in the world. 

WE

A lot of people are involved in this project. It is already the largest collective artwork in the Netherlands. More than 10,000 people dared to be a drop in the ocean.
We mention a number of them in: 'ABOUT'.

HOW

How do you prove the power of mankind? As you demonstrate the power of the sun to a child. Focus a few sun rays on a point. What is in the focal point will go up in smoke. If many people focus on one problem, and do almost nothing (not nothing), it will go up in smoke.

WHO

We want to reach out to people who do not want to be reached. 3200 years ago someone had the same problem. He came up with a ruge and it worked. We are going to repeat this. So  in 3200 years' time people will potentially still talk about this project.

WHEN

Never before has such a large statue been printed. And certainly not from recycled litter.
The first part was printed on 16th November, 2017.

Want to stay informed? Mail us.

Plastic Madonna in your city?

Once the Plastic Madonna is in your city, on the central square or a large market, it will attract a lot of attention. People will wonder why this huge and beautiful statue is lying in their city. People will make selfies with the statue. The local newspaper will write about it. In short, a completely different approach to involve residents in a solution. Because Plastic Madonna is not about the problem but the solution.

Reach

We want at least 80% of the inhabitants of your city to become acquainted with how incredibly easy it is to solve the litter problem. And that it's fun too.

Guest lectures

When Plastic Madonna visits your city, there will be a huge demand for guest lectures. We can't take care of all of them, but we can train guest teachers and make sure they will be as enthusiastic about telling the story of the solution, as we are today. We are going to do this with initiatives that are already in your city, because we love working together.

Street theater

We want to inform as many people in shopping centres as possible, by using street theatre to look at litter in a new way. We are also going to do this with help from local people.