The Green Journey
Coalition
Building advanced environmental technology to fight microplastic pollution. Tax-deductible donations fund the science, the tools, and the people making it happen.
501(c)(3)
Certified nonprofit
95%+
Extraction rate
Global
Impact & reach
2021
Founded
In the Press
European Patent Office feature
European Patent Office · 2023 · Fionn Ferreira on removing microplastics from water
The Problem
What are microplastics,
and why do they matter?
Since mass plastic production began in the 1950s, humanity has made over nine billion tonnes of the stuff — most of which still exists in some form today. Plastic doesn’t biodegrade; it just breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. Those pieces, and the ones manufactured small to begin with, are what we call microplastics.
A matter of scale
> 25 mm
Macroplastics
Roughly a bottle cap, or larger
5 mm – 1 µm
Microplastics
From a grain of sand down to a human hair
< 1 µm
Nanoplastics
Smaller than a red blood cell — invisible under a standard microscope
Where they come from
Microplastics are usually split into two categories: primary particles, manufactured small from the start, and secondary particles, formed when larger plastic items break down. Five sources account for most of what ends up in the environment.
Synthetic textiles
A single laundry load can shed hundreds of thousands of microfibres from polyester, nylon, and acrylic clothing — thought to be the largest source of primary microplastics reaching the ocean.
Tyre wear
Every time a car brakes, corners, or accelerates it sheds particles of synthetic rubber. Tyre wear is estimated to be the single largest source of microplastics released into the environment overall.
Personal care products
Exfoliating microbeads in scrubs, toothpaste, and cosmetics have been phased out in some countries, but remain legal and common elsewhere.
Industrial pellets
Raw plastic "nurdles" spilled during manufacturing, shipping, and handling — an under-reported source of pollution concentrated near ports and production sites.
Breakdown of larger debris
UV light, waves, and abrasion slowly fragment bottles, bags, and packaging into ever-smaller pieces. This "secondary" pathway accounts for most of the microplastic mass already in the environment.
Where they end up
Once released, microplastics travel far beyond where they started — carried by ocean currents, wind, rivers, and even the food we grow.
Oceans
Trillions of particles are estimated to be floating in surface waters alone — with far more thought to have settled on the seafloor below.
Drinking water
Detected in both tap and bottled water in studies worldwide, including groundwater sources once considered protected from surface pollution.
Soil & agriculture
Sewage sludge used as fertiliser, plastic mulch films, and contaminated irrigation water introduce microplastics directly into farmland.
The atmosphere
Airborne particles have been measured in rainfall over remote mountains and national parks, thousands of kilometres from the nearest city.
Remote & polar regions
Found in Arctic sea ice, deep-sea sediment near the Mariana Trench, and Antarctic snow — almost nowhere on Earth appears untouched.
The food chain
Identified in seafood, table salt, honey, and produce — and shown to be taken up through plant roots into the crops we eat.
Inside the human body
Recent peer-reviewed studies have detected microplastic particles in human blood, placental tissue, lung tissue, and even testicular tissue. A 2024 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found microplastics and nanoplastics inside arterial plaque, and linked their presence to a higher rate of heart attack, stroke, or death over the following three years — an association, not yet proof of cause.
Estimates of how much plastic people ingest vary widely — the often-quoted “credit card a week” figure comes from a single 2019 industry-commissioned report and is now considered a significant overestimate. More conservative, peer-reviewed studies still put annual ingestion in the tens of thousands of particles. Researchers broadly agree on the exposure; they don’t yet agree on the dose, or on what it means for long-term health.
Detection is hard. We specialise in it.
Standard microscopy struggles below roughly 20–50 microns, and the nanoplastics thought to pose the greatest biological risk are smaller still. Reliably identifying them usually requires spectroscopy equipment (FTIR, Raman, or pyrolysis-GC/MS) that costs tens of thousands of dollars and takes specialist training to run — and there’s still no single, globally standardised method, so labs studying the same water body can report results that differ by orders of magnitude.
That measurement problem is exactly where the Coalition lives. It’s the same science behind our extraction work, and it’s why we’re building cheaper, faster, better-standardised detection tools rather than waiting for someone else to solve it.
The full journey
Put together, the picture above traces a single path — from source, to environment, to the food on your plate, to your own body.
Stage 1
Source
Textiles, tyres, cosmetics, industrial pellets, and the slow breakdown of larger plastic debris.
Stage 2
Environment
Carried into oceans, soil, drinking water, and the air — settling almost everywhere on Earth.
Stage 3
Food chain
Taken up into seafood, salt, and produce — the food and water people consume every day.
Stage 4
Human body
Detected in blood, lungs, and placental tissue — and, per a 2024 study, in arterial plaque.
This is the gap the Green Journey Coalition exists to close. Below is what we’re building — or explore what’s hiding in the products you already own with the Probe app →
What We Build
Purpose-built tools
for a plastic-free world.
The Green Journey Coalition develops technology that researchers and communities can actually put to use. Our mission is to democratise the science of microplastic detection and removal — closing the gap between cutting-edge research and real-world action.
Technology Development
Building advanced tools to detect, quantify, and remove microplastic pollution — making the science accessible to researchers and communities worldwide.
The Probe App
Our flagship project: an AI-powered platform that lets anyone scan products, estimate personal microplastic intake, and explore peer-reviewed research.
Field Research & Advocacy
Translating lab breakthroughs into real-world policy change — from coastal clean-up data to briefings for international environmental bodies.
Tax-deductible giving
The Green Journey Coalition is a registered 501(c)(3) organisation. All donations are fully tax-deductible in the United States. A receipt is issued automatically.
The Technology
How we remove
microplastics from water.
Our removal method started with a simple discovery: a proprietary magnetic liquid that binds to microplastic particles suspended in water. It’s the technique Fionn originally developed, and that the Coalition now continues to test, refine, and scale.
The exact formulation is our core IP, so we keep the chemistry close to the chest. What we can share is the principle: a proprietary, non-toxic magnetic liquid is mixed into contaminated water, where it attaches to microplastic particles rather than to the water itself. Because the liquid is magnetic, all it takes to pull the plastic back out again is a magnet.
Step 1
Contaminated sample
Water carrying microplastic fragments and fibres — from a waterway, a wastewater outflow, or a lab test rig.
Step 2
Add the magnetic liquid
A proprietary, non-toxic magnetic liquid is mixed into the sample.
Step 3
Liquid binds to plastic
The magnetic liquid preferentially binds to microplastic particles rather than the surrounding water. The exact chemistry is part of our IP.
Step 4
Magnetic extraction
Because the liquid is magnetic, a magnet draws the plastic-laden clusters straight out of the water.
Step 5
Clean water, recovered plastic
What's left behind is cleaner water — and a concentrated, magnet-collected sample of plastic ready to be counted, identified, or disposed of.
In prototype testing, this method achieved 95%+ extraction of microplastics from water across a range of common polymer types. The Coalition’s current work is focused on validating and scaling those results, and building affordable extraction kits that labs, municipalities, and researchers anywhere can put to use.
Founder
Fionn Ferreira
Founder, The Green Journey Coalition
Fionn grew up in Ballydehob, West Cork, the son of two boatbuilders — kayaking the Atlantic coastline and watching the tide bring in more plastic every year. At 16, he discovered that a magnetic liquid could bind to microplastic particles and pull them out of water with a magnet, winning the 2019 Google Science Fair Global Grand Prize against 2,000+ projects from 80+ countries.
Since then he’s taken the microplastics crisis to the World Economic Forum in Davos and the House of Lords in London, been named to Forbes 30 Under 30 and a National Geographic Explorer, and worked as a TV presenter, fluent in five languages. He’s now a doctoral researcher in Professor Alexander Barnes’ group at ETH Zürich, developing high-temperature superconducting magnets for NMR spectroscopy.
Supported & Featured By
Robert Downey Jr.
FootPrint Coalition
The Spronck Foundation
Grant Partner
Igor Korneitchouk, PhD
Funder & Donor
National Geographic
Explorer Program
& more
Support the Work
Fund the technology
Every dollar funds technology development, field research, and the infrastructure to make environmental science accessible to all.
Secure payments via GiveForms · 501(c)(3) · EIN available on request
Considering a larger gift? Click here →
Get Involved
We’re actively seeking
pilot projects & funding.
We’re looking for municipalities, utilities, universities, and research partners ready to pilot our extraction and detection technology under real-world conditions — and for funders who want to back cutting-edge environmental science from validation through deployment. If that’s you, we’d love to hear from you.
The Team
Who’s behind it.
A small team spanning science, engineering, and law — built to move the Coalition from lab bench to field-deployed technology.
Fionn Ferreira
Founder
Founded the Coalition after his award-winning research into extracting microplastics from water with a proprietary magnetic liquid.
Nan Fisher
President
A veteran entrepreneur, television producer, and talent manager with 30+ years' experience, leading creative direction, growth, and commercialization.
Ross Carmel
General Counsel
Corporate securities attorney and founding partner of Sichenzia Ross Ference Carmel LLP, advising on governance, financing, and corporate transactions.
Joe Clark
Project Manager
Owner of JOSS Enterprises and staff consultant at Stress Engineering, with 40 years in product development, global sourcing, and commercialization.
Dr. Harbi Pordal
Lead Scientist & Engineer
Senior Vice President at Stress Engineering Services with a PhD in Aerospace Engineering — expertise in CFD, fluid mechanics, and multiphase flows.
Dr. Paul Siracusa
R&D Advisor
Former EVP of Global R&D at Church & Dwight, with executive roles at Playtex and Reckitt & Colman. Doctorate in Engineering from Columbia University.
The Green Journey Coalition · Registered 501(c)(3) · fionnferreira.com