Every year 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the world’s oceans, and cleaning the beaches , where materials arrive not only abandoned there but also carried by the current, is one of Europe’s priorities and, in particular, from Spanish regions like Galicia. Vigo is one of the Spanish cities that is most committed to cleaning its coasts, even more so when it has one of the best valued in the world, Rodas beach, in the emblematic Cíes Islands.
On September 21, on the occasion of the International Beach Cleaning Day, 40 volunteers from the European Solidarity Corps (CES) carried out a symbolic cleaning in the aforementioned Rodas Beach, which is one kilometer long. Institutional representatives echoed the importance of legislating in favor of measures to reduce plastic pollution that ends up in the sea, but also to encourage the production of alternatives for these materials. Two of the 17 objectives of the 2030 horizon for the municipality are expressly destined to action against climate change and the cleaning of seas and oceans, for the conservation of marine life.
More than forests, oceans are the main subsistence organ of life as we know it on our planet. Among its main threats, in addition to the death of coral reefs, acidification, and the decrease in oxygen, plastic pollution is one of the most pressing. Scientists have been warning of the problem of plastic pollution for years, so much so that by the year 2050 there could be more plastics than fish.
CES volunteers during the beach cleaning day / Alfonso Durán.
Spain, the country with the most youthful solidarity in Europe
Our country already exceeds the figure of 21,000 young people, between 17 and 30 years old, in the CES program, which makes it the European country with the most young volunteers. The objective of this body of volunteers is to spend stays of between 2 months and 1 year carrying out different solidarity tasks, including the conservation of the environment.
/ Litterdrone.
Litterdrone, the technology that helps clean the beaches
How can drones help us clean our beaches? The Litterdrone project, funded by the European Commission, is software that detects plastic debris to aid cleaning tasks. The images obtained through their cameras are processed through a specialized image recognition technology capable of cataloging the elements of marine litter. Thus, prevention and mitigation measures can be designed and implemented.
The field work for the project is carried out in the Atlantic Islands National Park, to which the Cíes and other islands belong, an area of enormous ecological value.
Our grain of sand
The European Commission initiative #EUBeachCleanUp, which has organized beach clean-ups in several countries in Europe and the world, aims not only to have an impact on the cleaning of the coasts but, especially, to make visible the problem of marine litter. In this way, Europe is positioned as a leading example of these policies, which are expected to be implemented throughout the world.
As revealed in a 2017 study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology , 90% of ocean pollution comes from ten major rivers in Asia and Africa. However, the problem in Europe is not innocuous, and neither is it in Spain. Specifically, 30 million cans and plastic bottles are abandoned every day on the Spanish coast.
