Building on the results achieved over five years with LifeGate PlasticLess, LifeGate launches a coalition for the protection of the sea: the Water Defenders Alliance.
It was 8 June 2018, World Oceans Day, when LifeGate launched a challenge: to clean the waters of Italian ports of plastic waste by installing pioneering bins capable of capturing it. This challenge, called LifeGate PlasticLess, was collective from the very first moment. Because dozens of companies and local authorities took part directly, making it possible to achieve extraordinary results. The team spirit is the driving force and soul of the new chapter opening five years on: the Water Defenders Alliance.
Five years on from the launch of the LifeGate PlasticLess project, there are now more than one hundred technological devices installed in over 90 ports, from north to south, from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic, with some forays beyond Italy's borders, for example in England, Greece and Switzerland. Joining the Seabin, the plastic-eating bin, are two further technologies: the Trash Collec'Thor, which captures up to 100 kg of floating waste, including plastics and microplastics, and the Pixie Drone, a drone that navigates seas, lakes and urban marinas to collect up to 60 kilograms of floating waste per mission. The result? Approximately 154 tonnes of waste collected, equivalent to the weight of more than 10 million half-litre bottles.
This is not the only milestone reached in five years of LifeGate PlasticLess. There is another, equally important one. By coordinating these interventions and working alongside universities and research centres, LifeGate has developed a deep knowledge of the problems affecting our waters. And it has come to know companies, ports and local authorities determined to do their part to change things. It is from this awareness that the Water Defenders Alliance takes shape.
Coordinated by LifeGate, which acts as guarantor of its scientific rigour, the Water Defenders Alliance brings together companies, individuals, ports, institutions and the research community. Each of these actors, in various capacities, can contribute to the solutions proposed by LifeGate to save our waters. There are three priority areas of intervention: the first, on which there is already a substantial wealth of experience, is the presence of plastic waste; then there is chemical pollution caused by hydrocarbon spills and the fragility of marine habitats.
Plastic pollution is one of the environmental emergencies that has truly succeeded in stirring consciences. Its high visibility, however, has so far not been enough to bring about a genuine change of course. Because the data continue to be alarming. According to the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), around 570,000 tonnes of plastics end up in the Mediterranean Sea every year, equivalent to the weight of more than fifty Eiffel Towers. Here, 7 per cent of the global total of microplastics — particles with a diameter of less than 5 millimetres — is concentrated. The most plausible estimates put the total volume of plastic accumulated in the Mediterranean at 1 billion 178 million tonnes. This is stated in a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
For members of the Water Defenders Alliance, LifeGate makes available the three technologies already extensively tested in our seas, lakes and urban marinas: Seabin, Trash Collec'Thor and Pixie Drone. There is also a second option: organising operations to recover waste from the seabed, which accounts for around two-thirds of plastic pollution in our waters, including abandoned fishing nets (the so-called "ghost nets"). The missions are carried out by professional divers, guided by a marine biologist.
It is less common to hear about another type of pollution: that caused by hydrocarbons. The Italian Ministry of the Environment states that environmental accidents over the past thirty years have caused the release of around 272,000 tonnes of oil into the sea, with disastrous consequences for habitats and the oxygenation of the water. This is, moreover, a very partial estimate. Every single day, the routine manoeuvres of recreational boaters — bilge water cleaning, engine maintenance and refuelling — accidentally release drops of oil into seas and lakes.
Those who join the Water Defenders Alliance can contribute to the spread of the innovative kits patented by T1, a Brescia-based company and LifeGate partner. For recreational boaters and fishing vessels, practical sponges are available — water-repellent and reusable up to two hundred times — that capture up to 100 per cent of hydrocarbons, preventing them from accidentally entering the water. One kilogram of sponge can absorb around 6 tonnes of hydrocarbons. In the port, a device can also be installed that stores the hydrocarbons intercepted by the sponges and allows them to be disposed of in compliance with current regulations.
The Mediterranean Sea is geographically small: it covers just 0.82 per cent of the total surface area of the planet's oceans. Yet it hosts 94 different types of habitat and 7.5 per cent of all marine species. Some 44 per cent of fish species and 25 per cent of mammals in the Mediterranean basin are endemic, meaning they exist exclusively there. These figures make it a fully fledged biodiversity hotspot — a place characterised by an extraordinarily rich diversity of living species. One that is, however, being put at risk by human beings.
Pollution is one of the main threats, but it is not the only one. Intense maritime traffic also subjects plants and animals to considerable stress, especially in areas that are inherently more fragile. There is also the problem of invasive alien species, originating from other geographical areas, which are now able to survive and thrive at our latitudes as well, owing to increasingly warm waters. Among the most damaging are the rabbitfish and the lionfish.
Together with the extensive network of universities and research centres it collaborates with, LifeGate can organise Posidonia oceanica planting activities, thereby recreating those underwater meadows capable of storing CO2 and producing oxygen. Native mussels and oysters also capture carbon dioxide and, beyond that, act as natural filters against pollution, as a source of nutrition and as a barrier against alien species. Members of the Water Defenders Alliance can therefore contribute to reintroducing them into the Gulf of La Spezia.
In practical terms, what does joining the Water Defenders Alliance mean? Everyone can play a role. Citizens become active participants by adopting and promoting the good practices on offer, including boaters' kits, or by using the citizen science apps validated and recommended by LifeGate. The world of universities and research is invited to put forward its projects to monitor and deploy additional tools to protect marine biodiversity.
The contribution of local authorities and ports is also crucial, as they can apply to host Water Defenders Alliance initiatives, as well as adopting protocols for the sustainable management of water and promoting virtuous behaviours. For now, the starting point is the 99 ports and marine protected areas already included in the PlasticLess project, grouped into macro-areas: for each of them, the challenges and their percentage of completion are identified. Every company, by supporting one or more initiatives, can apply to raise this score and complete the challenges identified in a single port, in a macro-area or even across multiple locations scattered throughout Italy. LifeGate holds the reins of the alliance, acting as "director", scientific lead and point of reference for the various partners. With the ultimate goal of reaching 100 per cent of every challenge, in every single port in our country. To find out more: https://waterdefenders.it/