A Biodiversity Foundation Project (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment).
This project aims to find new uses for plastic waste recovered from the sea: sampling protocol, toxicology and design of new uses for marine litter.
The Port of Marín has hosted work sessions for this project, at which actions for the collection and sorting of waste collected in the area and deposited at the port were defined. Once such materials have been deposited, the marine litter is sorted and characterised to determine its type through a sampling protocol, from which a database is fed and the ecological effects of the detected plastics and microplastics defined. They are then separated and processed to manufacture new products made from recycled materials.
This project is financed by the Inditex group to design a comprehensive management system for inorganic waste from fishing ports (food plastics, polystyrene boxes, disused nets and fishing gear, marine litter) and to study the possibilities of recovering those items as raw materials to manufacture clothing and fashion accessories. It is a large-scale circular economy project.
The Port of Marin and its fishing fleet are pioneering the implementation of environmental projects for the recycling, selective removal and treatment of different wastes from both fishing and the collection of marine litter. Over the past few years, it has joined numerous initiatives in this regard and has continued to implement the same environmental practices after each of the projects was completed. Capital investments have been made, such as installing a compactor that makes the job of removing waste for subsequent shipment to specialised treatment plants easier.
