The presence of garbage in the seas and oceans is a growing problem that progresses in parallel with economic and industrial development and seriously affects ecosystems of both marine fauna and flora, even reaching the food chain. A very visible part of this pollution corresponds to plastic waste that consumers do not deposit at specific collection points and end up in the sea, creating large floating garbage rafts. In fact, according to Greenpeace, plastics represent 80% of marine pollution. To address this situation, the Technological Institute of Plastics (Aimplas), in collaboration with the University of Vigo through the Ecotox group, the Global Nature Foundation, the Vertidos Cero Association and the Fishermen’s Guild of Gandía, launched the Repesca_Plas project, which aims to collect marine garbage in Galicia and Valencia for analysis and valorization in the form of new products.
The aim is to promote the collection and subsequent identification of plastic waste in the ports of Gandía and Vigo by fishermen from each of the areas, in order to be able to analyse both its typology and the impact on marine fauna. In a final phase, different possibilities for valorising the waste will be defined for its application in the manufacture of new products at an industrial level. This initiative has the support of the Biodiversity Foundation and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and the Environment, through the Pleamar Programme, co-financed by the FEMP.
Ecotox’s work, defining the ecotoxicity of collected waste
The participation of the University of Vigo in this project will be organized through the Ecotox group (Ecotoxicology and Marine Pollution), led by professor Ricardo Beiras. Together with Aimplas and the Vertido Cero Association, they will be responsible for characterizing the collected waste to define both the type of waste, its nature and origin and its ecotoxicity. As the researchers explain, “in the characterization of ecotoxicity, protocols will be established with different biological models and they will be evaluated in early stages of development of the selected marine organisms”. In addition, they add, “the results obtained in the characterizations will be analyzed to establish global results of the collection areas and determine the influence of the collected waste on the marine environment”. These tasks will also obtain data related to the effect of plastics on the reproduction of marine species and all the information will be provided in the form of data to the official marine waste monitoring program of Mapama.
The first phase of the project starts in January.
The first phase of the project, the collection phase, will start in January 2018. The first task will be to define and plan the collection points at the port for their subsequent characterization. To this end, a roadmap will be drawn up in each location and a dozen fishermen will be trained so that these tasks can be carried out optimally. During the seven months that this phase lasts, the Gandía Fishermen’s Guild and the fishermen who work in the Port of Vigo will collect at least 300 kilos of marine litter.
O resultado final do proxecto consistirá en analizar as diferentes posibilidades de valorización dos residuos plásticos e as súas posibles aplicacións que se concretarán na fabricación dos tipos de pezas demostrativas.
Source: DUVI
