Cleaning the Canary Islands' seabed with Ocean Angel 🇮🇨
The Canary Islands: at the crossroads of ocean pollution.
The Canary Islands sit at a difficult crossroads when it comes to marine pollution. Local fishing and coastal activity leave waste on the seabed, but the archipelago is also directly exposed to the Canary Current, which carries plastic waste and ghost gear from across the North Atlantic — some of it drifting in from thousands of kilometres away.
The result: a marine environment burdened with pollution the islands sometimes didn't even create, but have to deal with. This debris damages habitats, entangles marine wildlife, and pollutes the ocean for years, often decades.
Meet Ocean Angel
We're proud to financially support Ocean Angel, a local organisation dedicated to protecting Tenerife's underwater environment. The work of this NGO is refreshingly direct: diving and hand-removing marine litter and ghost gear from the seabed, one dive at a time. Since the organisation was founded three years ago, over 8,500 kilos of debris have already been retrieved from Tenerife's waters, with the objective of reaching 10,000 by the end of 2026.
How Ocean Beer funds this work
Our support for Ocean Angel is funded directly by local Ocean Beer sales in the Canary Islands. As a certified non-profit, Ocean Born Foundation donates 100% of the profits from Ocean Beer sales to marine restoration — with half funding global Marine Protected Areas, and the other half going to local conservation projects in each country where Ocean Beer is brewed and sold. For the Canary Islands, that local half for 2026 went to Ocean Angel.
A project chosen by our community
Ocean Angel was selected as our Canary Islands beneficiary through a community vote, with more than 600 people taking part to pick their favourite local ocean organisation. We're delighted to back the initiative chosen by the community, and to help fund conservation work happening on Tenerife's shores.
We'd also like to acknowledge Clean Ocean Project and Canary Green, the two other finalists — both doing meaningful work to protect the marine environment across the archipelago.
About Ocean Angel
Ocean Angel is a marine conservation organisation based in Tenerife, founded by Master Scuba Instructor Michelle Whalley. Through regular diving operations, she removes marine litter and ghost gear from the seabed — reducing pollution, protecting marine life, and bringing divers and the wider community together around a shared cause.