![]() “My mother once said I was born an hour too far away from what I really am,” Cooper says. Looking back and into the futureĪndrew Cooper was raised in Orlando, Florida and says the ocean has always been near and dear to him. To keep the concept fresh, 4Ocean launches a new campaign every six to eight weeks and ties it to observation events such as Shark Conservation Week, Earth Day and World Oceans Day. Their bracelets are made from recycled materials from an outside facility. The trash collected by 4Ocean is sorted in their 8,000-square foot cleanup warehouse and then taken to waste processing centers. Every bracelet purchased funds the removal of one pound of trash from the ocean. The beads are made from recycled glass bottles and the cord is made from recycled plastic water bottles. The bracelets are made out of 100% post-consumer recycled material. The concept of getting people to buy the trash has been accomplished through the sale of 4Ocean bracelets. Through partnerships with other organizations, 4Ocean has hosted cleanups in Canada, Bahamas, Montserrat, Haiti, Norway and the Philippines. Their cleanup focus is on beaches, offshore and intracoastal waterways and the primary location for the ocean cleanups is currently on the East Coast of Florida. The company started with two employees and has grown to a staff of 40 which includes boat captains who operate five cleanup vessels, seven days a week. In their first seven months, 4Ocean has collected over 90,000 pounds of trash. After 16 months of prepping and quantifying, the company was launched in January of 2017. Removing the trash that ends up in our oceansĤOcean is based in Boca Raton, Florida and is dedicated to removing the trash that ends up in our oceans. That sentence resonated and we wondered, ‘what if we could get people to buy the trash.’” “Someone pointed out that fishing is their living – it’s what they sell. “On that trip to Bali, we watched local fishermen wade through piles of trash to push their boats out, only to return with no fish to sell,” says Cooper. Alex Schulze and Andrew Cooper were just graduating from Florida Atlantic University with marketing and entrepreneurship degrees and knew they wanted their life paths to involve working on the water. The self-described ‘boat ramp rats’ had an epiphany while on a surfing trip to Bali. The entrepreneurial spirit lived inside of them early on whether it was hawking candy bars in high school, selling coconuts on the beach in college, captaining boats or running fishing charters. Such is the case for the two millennial founders of 4Ocean. Many entrepreneurs will tell you that their inclinations began at an early age. The natural tendency to have far-sightedness is a gift that successful business owners use to fulfill their vision. See how two entrepreneurs took on marine litter
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