The Ocean Cleanup: Data Solutions Accelerate Ocean Plastic Removal

The Ocean Cleanup is at the forefront of addressing the significant challenge of tracking vast quantities of plastic debris across the oceans. To initiate effective cleanup operations, accurate data on the movement and concentration of plastics is vital, gathered through advanced tools like GPS devices, autonauts for environmental monitoring, and X-band radar. However, the true challenge emerges in the stages of cleaning, integrating, and analyzing this data to transform it into actionable insights.

Addressing Data Challenges to Enhance Efficiency and Collaboration

The Ocean Cleanup faced obstacles in data pipeline management due to slow updates, computational inefficiencies, and data inconsistencies. The management of diverse data types and formats from various sources compounded these issues, and the absence of a centralized data platform hindered effective collaboration and advanced analytics. A versatile platform was crucial to analyze extensive data on plastic locations and address the monumental task of cleaning up 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic floating at the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Empowering Data Science for Environmental Good

In response to these challenges, The Ocean Cleanup partnered with Dataiku’s social impact initiative, Ikig.AI. This collaboration provided access to Dataiku’s platform and expert support, enhancing their data management capabilities and significantly accelerating data analysis processes.

Advanced Data Pipeline Management Revolutionizes Workflow Efficiency

Dataiku’s platform revolutionized data pipeline management at The Ocean Cleanup, enabling effective progress monitoring and leveraging insights from past projects to enhance future initiatives. Within the first year, the team efficiently replicated complex data workflows, thereby increasing their capacity to focus on developing value-maximizing features.

Comprehensive Data Handling and Centralized Management Empowers Decision-Making

The centralized platform has been pivotal in how The Ocean Cleanup manages and analyzes environmental data across various types and formats. It automates key processes — correcting 306,225 rows that lack country information and computing weights for nearly 100,000 rows based on plastic descriptions — significantly enhancing data accuracy and efficiency.

Geospatial Analysis and Data Integration: Enhanced geospatial analysis capabilities allow for precise tracking of debris movements and identification of plastic hotspots. Automated data pipelines ensure the database is continually updated, optimizing strategic decision-making. Dataiku supports an array of data collection methods, from the largest beach cleanup database to underwater cameras, integrating these sources to provide a detailed view of how plastics move within aquatic environments.

Thanks to Dataiku, we are able to easily aggregate, clean, and process the oncoming data, to be able to derive our operation’s key performance indicators — such as encountered plastics and system performance — which are updated several times a day thanks to the data pipelines. Bruno Sainte-Rose Lead Computational Modeler, The Ocean Cleanup

Dataiku’s Interface and Learning Resources Boost Collaboration

Dataiku’s platform democratizes data science, making it accessible to all team members through intuitive visual recipes for data wrangling and visualization. This simplifies interactions with data workflows and enhances monitoring of project success metrics, enabling quick, informed decisions.

Additionally, Dataiku’s comprehensive learning resources democratize data science education. This support broadens user understanding, enabling five times more individuals across The Ocean Cleanup to contribute their expertise to various projects, significantly enhancing the organization’s data-driven initiatives and operational efficiencies in combating oceanic plastic pollution.

The user-oriented, code-minimalistic approach provided by the Dataiku pipeline was a game changer both for our data pre-processing and post-processing steps. Bruno Sainte-Rose Lead Computational Modeler, The Ocean Cleanup

Advanced AI Transforms Routine Operations Into Impactful Solutions

Beyond routine platform use, Dataiku’s data science team provides extensive support in AI-driven logistics and image detection, enhancing operations by optimizing cleanup efforts. They leverage data insights to expand and enhance outreach efforts, significantly increasing the mission’s impact. Utilizing Dataiku’s workflows has enabled a fivefold faster rollout of campaigns, demonstrating exceptional time-saving capabilities.

We are really really thankful for being a part of the Dataiku Ikig.AI program that enables us to combine everything to finally solve this mystery. Yannick Pham Computational Modeler, The Ocean Cleanup

A Partnership for the Planet

The Ocean Cleanup’s partnership with Dataiku has significantly advanced their mission of removing 90% of floating ocean plastics. This collaboration has not only enhanced operational efficiencies but also set a new standard for employing technology in environmental challenges, making a substantial impact on ocean health.