After Marina di Varazze, in Liguria, had been the “pioneer,”Marina dei Cesari is also following the good example by installing the first Seabin in the Marche region (after that it will be the turn of Circolo Nautico Sambenedettese in San Benedetto del Tronto). The installation is the result of a collaboration between the Marina fanese, and LifeGate (the leading platform in Italy active on sustainability issues) and the multinational Whirlpool, which enthusiastically joined the project. This is great news, for those of us who are on the Medplastic Team and aim to protect our sea!
The device, designed in Australia and manufactured in Europe by Poralu Marine, is an effective sea sweeper. It is shaped like a cylinder floating in water, equipped with an electrically powered pump. Placed at the accumulation points, it can work for 24 hours a day nonstop and capture about 1.5 kg of waste per day, or more than 500 kg per year. Including microplastics 5 to 2 mm in diameter and 0.3 mm microfibers invisible to the naked eye but extremely dangerous because they are ingested by the fish and shellfish we consume. Seabin also catches many common wastes that end up in the seas such as cigarette butts, which are unfortunately also very present in our waters.
Seabin is submerged in water and attached to a floating dock with the top of the device at the level of the water surface. Thanks to the pump, which acts like a plunger, attached to the base of the unit, the waste is conveyed directly into the removable bin located inside the device, which is capable of treating 25,000 liters of seawater per hour.
The waste is caught in the bin as water flows through the pump and back into the sea. When the bin is full, it is emptied and cleaned by marina staff.
“We are very proud,” commented Maura Garofoli, communication and marketing manager of Marina dei Cesari, “to have been chosen by big international names such as Whirpool and Lifegate to experiment with Seabin in our Marina. This confirms the validity of our commitment to the work of raising awareness in defense of the sea carried out since the birth of the port in 2003 and strengthened in recent years together with the MPN Marinas network of which we are part and the European Clean Sea Life project.”
The Mediterranean Sea, home to 7.5 percent of known marine species, is one of the areas most affected by plastic pollution. According to the United Nations Environment Program, up to 100,000 fragments of various sizes of plastic per square kilometer would be found in its waters. Also among the reasons are the careless behaviors of still too many people, who cause tons of plastic to end up in the sea every day.
TIME TO ACT.
Time to Take Action is the slogan of Medplastic, the project of GdV and Barche a Motore to safeguard the Mediterranean. Join the MedPlastic Team Facebook group, there you can post news, projects, photodenunciations, videos. Then participate in the NO Plastic Instagram contest (by sending a photo to our instagram inbox – @giornaledellavela – or on the Medplastic Team group, as all the authors of the photos we show you here did): we will award the best testimonials at the 2019 VELAFestival. In addition, if you have structured projects to propose that you think would be useful to the “cause,” please send an email to savethemed@gmail.com. www.medplastic.org
