Award-winning Australian environmentalist Tim Silverwood is best known for his vital work in raising awareness of the damage we are doing to our precious oceans by polluting them. He helped to co-found the successful Take 3 for the Sea non-profit organisation in 2009, and more recently, in 2020, launched the Ocean Impact Organisation (OIO), Australia’s first ocean-impact ecosystem, helping businesses that have a positive effect on the seas surrounding the country. He has been named a Sustainability Champion by Green Globe and been featured in documentary series and films such as Blue and War on Waste. He has worked as a professional keynote speaker and presenter for more than 10 years, delivering talks to schools, businesses, and conferences in both Australia and America. He has built a large social media following, particularly on Instagram.
Silverwood is a passionate surfer, and it’s through this that he experienced first-hand the devastating effects of plastic pollution on the sea. Inspired, albeit by outrage, he co-founded Take 3 for the Sea and helped to build it into a successful charity. Since then, ocean conservation, as well as wider conservation and sustainability issues, have become his life’s work. He once sailed 5000km across the North Pacific Ocean, seeing close-up and studying the heartbreakingly large Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This trip formed the basis of his searing TedX Talk, ‘How Did Our Lives Become So Plastic?’
Since then, Silverwood has become a regular fixture of Australian media where the ocean is concerned. His charities continue to do vital work, both on the ground and online, educating people from all walks of life about the dangers of single-use plastic and what they can do to help make its use now a thing of the past.
