This TED Talk features entrepreneur and environmentalist David Katz, recorded live at TED at IBM 2017.

We've had it all wrong. Everybody. We've had it all wrong.

The very last thing we need to do is clean the ocean.

Very last.

Yeah, there is a garbage truck of plastic.

Entering the ocean every minute of every hour, of every day.

And countless birds and animals

are dying just from encountering plastic.

We are experiencing the fastest rate of extinction ever,

and plastic is in the food chain.

And I'm still here standing in front of you, telling you,

the very last thing we need to do is clean the ocean. Very last.

If you were to walk into a kitchen, sink overflowing, water spilling all over the floor, soaking into the walls, you had to think fast. You're going to panic. You've got a bucket, a mop or a plunger. What do you do first? Why don't we turn off the tap? It would be pointless to mop or plunge or scoop up the water

if we don't turn off the tap first.

Why aren't we doing the same for the ocean?

Even if the ocean cleanup project,

beach plastic recycling programs,

or any well-meaning ocean beach plastic recycling programs,

or any well-meaning ocean plastic company,

was 100% successful,

it would still be too little, too late.

We're trending to produce over 300 million ton of plastic this year.

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