About us

This is how we started

In 2016, Carolina Sevilla Víquez launched the Instagram account “5 Minute Beach Cleanup” to show the impact of plastic on the oceans and to encourage people to spend at least five minutes cleaning their local beach. Within a year, several of its videos went viral and reached more than 20 million views.

Two years later, together with entrepreneur Mauricio Cortés, she created the foundation as the non profit arm of the movement. Since then we have achieved:

5,000

Hours of corporate cleanups

20 t

Plastic collected per year

1,000+

Students in Ocean Heroes

20+

Hotels and partners

Our impact is felt locally and around the world.

Our story

From a global movement to a foundation

Chapter 1 · 2016

The movement

One idea shared on Instagram: give five minutes to the beach.

2016A movement is bornCarolina Sevilla Víquez launches 5 Minute Beach Cleanup on Instagram to show the impact of plastic on the oceans. The videos go viral all over the world, with more than 10 million views, and people everywhere start giving their own five minutes to the beach.

Chapter 2 · 2018 to 2023

The nonprofit

To turn that energy into lasting work, the foundation is created.

2018The nonprofit is bornWith entrepreneur Mauricio Cortés, the 5 Minute Beach Cleanup Foundation is created. The first Friends of the Ocean cleanup stations open in beach hotels, about ten across Costa Rica over the years. Carolina speaks at the Omina Summit in San José alongside Paul Hawken, Gisele Bündchen, Oskar Metsavaht and Livia Firth.

2019On the global stageCorrespondent at The Economist World Ocean Summit. The movement is featured in the Athleta (GAP) spring campaign.

2020Clinton Global InitiativeInvited to the Clinton Global Initiative in Puerto Rico.

2021A voice for Costa RicaWorld Oceans Day with members of the European Commission. Condé Nast Traveler selects Carolina for “The World Made Local”, one of 100 local voices from 100 countries.

2022Ocean Conference and SXSWSpeaker at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon and on the SXSW panel “Visions of Sustainable Tourism” in Austin. DVF Woman of the Month, an OCB short documentary and the Faherty summer collection.

2023Tourism for the oceanTalk at Península Papagayo. Collaboration with WWF, Airbnb and ProParques for sustainable and inclusive tourism in Costa Rica.

Chapter 3 · 2024 to 2026

Art and education

The message goes beyond the beach, into museums and classrooms.

2024Fossils of the Anthropocene travels to EuropePlastic from Costa Rican beaches becomes art and science, with ICT and Esencial Costa Rica. Zurich with Projektil (January to March), IMEX Frankfurt (May) and Geneva with the Pixel Ocean video mapping (October 2024 to May 2025). Talk at Envision Festival, Uvita.

2025Musée Masséna, NiceThe installation is exhibited in Nice as part of the UN Ocean Conference. More than 200,000 people reached in Europe.

202610 years, 160+ countriesMore than 35,000 cleanups shared worldwide. Fossils of the Anthropocene opens at the MADC in San José, its first museum exhibition in Costa Rica. Featured by UNESCO’s Blue Thread on the Ocean Literacy Portal and on RAI 3 in the 30th anniversary season of “Il Mondo con gli occhi di Overland”. In October 2026, Ocean Heroes and the Tortuga Libre pilot arrive in the schools of Nosara.

It started with five minutes. It is still about five minutes: yours.

Featured by Make a Change World