Project Libera, initiated by SEO/BirdLife in partnership with Ecoembes, mobilizes the public to reflect on the impact of waste and its concentration in sensitive zones. The routes that cut through boulevards and streams often become corridors for rubbish that ultimately ends up in the sea. Citizens are urged to gather this waste before the predictable late-summer lull arrives, a pattern that tends to emerge in late August and September, especially in the eastern regions of the country. The new campaign is set to take place on 16 September.
Many of these zones are described as large clusters of waste, sometimes called black dots, where there is a high concentration of debris. The material that eventually pollutes the sea is carried there by rainwater which collects every item discarded into these areas.
In recent years, it has been noted that the most common waste in these areas includes packaging after floods, tires in valleys, and agricultural plastics on boulevards, according to Project Libera in a recent statement.
That is why the Libera Project has published a report detailing the types of waste that create debris both in Spain and globally, under the title The impact of garbage on the seas and oceans.
According to the study, between 4.8 and 12.7 million tons of plastic enter the oceans each year. This equates to more than 100 million macroplastic fragments and about 51 trillion microplastic particles floating on the sea surface. It is also estimated that 5% to 10% of microplastics found in marine environments come from tire wear on roads.
“We throw 230 thousand tons of plastic into the Mediterranean every year,” said Miguel Muñoz, coordinator of the Libera Project for SEO/BirdLife. “That amounts to 27 tons per hour of this material. It is comparable to dumping the weight of 1.3 million water bottles, five million plastic bags, or 130 million cigarette butts every hour on a small portion of our planet’s sea surface.”
Participation is open to all groups and registrations can be made on proyectolibera.org until the 10th of the month.
Sara Güemes, coordinator of this initiative at Ecoembes, emphasized that water tests were conducted on 18 Libera beaches in 2021 and 2022 across Spain, yielding 62 samples in total. Microplastics appeared in more than 95% of the samples, a finding described as alarming. She stressed that unity, education, and determination among groups are essential to halt waste dumping.
The Call for New Citizens for the 16th Year
The Libera Project has long encouraged people to join a wide network of volunteers who fight against garbage. On 16 September, the campaign 1m2 for Beaches and Seas returns for its seventh year, focusing on collecting and analyzing litter in these natural spaces to gain deeper insights into a problem that threatens biodiversity.
This year’s event coincides with International Beach Cleaning Day (World Cleanup Day). Participation is open to any organization, group, association, or collective. Online registration is available at proyectolibera.org before 10 September.
In this effort, precise data about the waste found during beach cleanups led by various groups is compiled through the Vertidos Cero association and the MARNOBA mobile app. Since 2013, 4,586 beach cleanups have been conducted, resulting in 1,453,861 objects collected, with approximately 74.8% being plastic and 6.2% metals.
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Contact information for the environmental department has been removed for privacy in this version.