Representatives of the Blue World Institute participated last week in Venice at the Kick off Meeting of the partners on the project marGnet (EASME/EMFF/2017/1.2.1.12/S2/05/SI2.789314) funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund as part of the “Sustainable Blue Economy ” call. At the meeting, technical and methodological characteristics of the project activities were presented and numerous details of project implementation were agreed.

The objectives of the project are primarily to find innovative solutions for dealing with marine litter problems. The focus is on marine litter that is characterized as abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear and other waste generated at the sea floor as a result of various activities on the sea such as fishing and aquaculture. As part of the project, selected area of the sea floor will be mapped at the Venetian lagoon and in the Cres-Losinj archipelago by mean of combined multi-sensor high resolution acoustic methodes. In order to determine hotspots of marine litter on the sea floor a wide scale predictive model, able to stimulate dispersion of the sinking marine litter will be developed.

Marine litter collected during various project activities such as measurements and mapping, as well as promotional dive clean up actions will be collected and the plastic parts will be recycled in an innovative manner in biodiesel fuel for the vessels. We expect the recycling process of the collected fishing nets and other marine plastic bottoms to be displayed and promoted to the general public during the Demonstration days that will be organized in Venice and Mali Losinj next year.

Together with our project partners, we hope that the foreseen goals will be met and that some of the above-mentioned innovative technologies and solutions will one day find wider application in practice.