Samay Dadlani ’24
Contributor
Beginning with the #TeamTrees, and now on to a more massive stage, viral content creator and certainly YouTube’s most popular philanthropist Jimmy Donaldson, more commonly known as Mr. Beast, is back with a grander campaign called Team Seas.
For those familiar with YouTube’s sensation Mr. Beast, you may recollect his goal of planting 20 million trees in 2019. With the assist of his 70 million fans, the goal was completely smashed out of the park – with the fundraiser still receiving generous donations every single day from October to December. Similarly, this year, Mr. Beast wanted to step up his game.
Alongside former NASA engineer Mark Robert, they have organized a campaign called Team Seas. Team Seas is an international collaborative fundraiser project that wishes to remove 30 million pounds of trash from the polluted seas, rivers, and dispersed along beaches by January 1, 2022. For each US dollar (around 1.26 CAD) donated, one pound of trash (0.45 kilograms) will be taken out of a body of water.
YouTubers across the digital platform have donated surpluses of money, including: PrestonPlayz and Brianna (100,012 USD), Adin Ross (50,100 USD), and Dhar Mann Studios (50,000 USD). Everybody is contributing to this organization for a significant cause: preserving our oceans.
As of December 8, 2021, at 5:47pm, 17,666,938 USD (22,334,543 CAD) has been raised, accomplishing more than half of the milestone within only 2 weeks.
In a Q&A session, Mr. Beast had explained why he and Mark decided to launch the ocean cleaning campaign. He stated, “our oceans, rivers, and beaches are full of plastic trash. It is estimated that there are 200 million tons of plastic already circulating in marine environments, with an estimated 11 million tons entering the ocean every year.
Pollution from bottles, bags, straws, and abandoned fishing gear is a health crisis for our entire planet. So, we are going to remove the equivalent of 85 football fields covered a foot deep in trash.”
To decontaminate beaches, rivers, and oceans around the world, the duo has partnered with two non-profit organizations: The Ocean Conservancy and The Ocean Cleanup.
Approximately 80% of the plastic that flows into the oceans approaches from 1% of the rivers in the world. To fight this, The Ocean Cleanup has developed a unique solution to efficiently stop the flow of plastic into rivers before it reaches the oceans; trash-collecting robots.
To raise 30 million dollars by the end of the year, hundreds of social media influencers will be uploading videos about donating to Team Seas and asking their followers to contribute as much as they can. This initiative is a creative and impactful way to make a notable difference in the fight against climate change. Together, you can be a part of Team Seas and do exactly that.
To support the cause and save our beaches, rivers, and oceans, you can visit www.teamseas.org and donate towards the 30 million USD goal. And remember, that every small donation matters, so take hold of the device nearest to you and please donate.
Photo credit: Teamseas.org
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