This summer a group of volunteers from Good Karma Projects took a trip around the Mediterranean on the Majoqui, a 10m sailboat. They sailed 350nm going from the Catalan coast to Mallorca collecting data on microplastics in the Mediterranean and other larger plastics such as abandoned fishing nets.
This expedition was part of their project #medplastico, whose goal is to showcase the pollution situation, including micro-plastics in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, to make the invisible problem for most people, visible.
Good Karma Projects have been sampling micro-plastics in the Mediterranean since 2018 with a ‘Manta Trawl’. This is a device they built for this purpose. The data collected gives us a quick picture of the situation of plastics in the Mediterranean. During the filming of the documentary Mediterraneamente Plástico they found 100,000 pieces of microplastics per Km2. Currently, the expedition’s micro-plastics found in the Mediterranean are in the university lab where they are still counting them. This process can take up to 6 months!
At the same time, Good Karma Projects found five ghost nets within seven days! Following a random trajectory, that is an alarming fact. It is estimated that fishing activities lose 640,000 tons of plastic waste at sea each year, the equivalent of 50,000 double-decker buses.
Good Karma’s contribution to cleaning up and researching the issue of micro-plastics in the Mediterranean gives visibility to the problem. Furthermore allows for the corroboration of studies related to sea pollution. The threat is real and damages the entire ecosystem, including for humans.
Watch the documentary here.
You can find more info here:
https://gkprojects.org/2020/07/20/our-last-expedition-through-the-mediterranean/
https://gkprojects.org/2020/06/22/new-citizen-science-expedition/
