Africa-Press – Cape verde. The environmental association Biosfera removes approximately 60 tons of trash annually from a stretch of just three kilometers of the Santa Luzia coastline, revealed Hércules Sousa, a technician from the marine pollution department, to Inforpress.
The main focus of these operations, which began in 2011, has been Praia dos Achados, considered the area with the highest nesting of sea turtles on the island.
The technician added that Biosfera carried out its largest campaign between 2019 and 2020 and currently has 11 containers built with materials found on the coast, which serve as reservoirs for trash awaiting removal.
“According to studies we have conducted, we have already managed to remove about 60 tons of trash (…). But we still don’t have the total amount we have managed to remove from the island of Santa Luzia, because we are now preparing studies to assess whether it is possible to remove all the trash from the island and what the impact of this removal would be,” said Hércules Sousa.
According to the technician, the dumpsters are a containment measure so that, when a solution is found to remove the island’s trash, it is concentrated in a single location.
“Besides the surface trash, there is also a lot of trash under the sand. Before making the dumpsters, we dig holes so that they are more stable and are not knocked over by the wind. They are built with wood that arrives on the beach and is collected three days before the cleanup campaigns,” explained the same source, adding that, before each campaign, a team is responsible for increasing the capacity of the dumpsters, avoiding the need to build new ones.
Despite the continuous effort, Hércules Sousa stressed that there are areas of the island where “it is practically impossible to walk without stepping on trash” and where human intervention has not yet arrived.
The only time they managed to remove trash from the island, he stated, was during the passage of the ship ‘Plastic Odyssey’, when they removed 300 kilos of waste from the beaches, which were taken to the boat and recycled.
“They made bars and produced chairs; in fact, we have two of those chairs at the camp,” stated the Biosphere technician.
According to him, this is a way to solve the problem of lighter plastics on the beach, but the biggest challenge remains the large quantity of nets and fishing gear that arrive in Santa Luzia.
“Nets and fishing gear are the waste we find most here, and we still haven’t found a solution to transform them,” he added.
Hércules Sousa also highlighted that the action of the sun and sea on the trash results in the formation of microplastics, which increase every year on Praia dos Achados, making removal increasingly difficult.
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