In June 2023, Sunce became a partner of the Sub-merus initiative From River to Sea – Plastic Free, funded by the Beyond Plastic Med (BeMed) micro-initiative.

We want to share the results of our cooperation with the Calypso Diving Center from Omiš. Over the summer, Sunce delivered six educational lectures on the dangers of plastic, its proper disposal, and the importance of separate waste collection to the diving center’s participants.

The Calypso Diving Center in Omiš is not an ordinary diving center

During the project’s life, Calypso has hosted about a hundred young people worldwide. The Calypso Diving School offers a diving course and the opportunity to volunteer and contribute to the cleanup of the sea. Young people from countries such as Spain, the UK, and Australia, stayed at the camp for an average of 10 days and had the opportunity to learn, dive, socialize, and volunteer.

For the volunteers coming to Calypso, Sunce has developed an educational program that consists of lectures, active engagement through games, and monitoring of marine debris collected during dives. Every two weeks, we held classes on marine pollution and trained volunteers to monitor the collected litter. In total, we had six such meetings from August to September.

Sunce’s presentation on waste and the effects of pollution

We talked to young people from all over the world about how much waste is already in the ocean, how it negatively affects marine animals, and what the situation is in the Adriatic right now. We presented some (un)interesting facts about pollution, for example:

• By 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish, given the current rate of pollution.
• 90% of seabirds eat plastic.
• Microplastics have been found in all corners of the world, even the most remote and uninhabited: on the top of Mount Everest, in the Mariana Trench, and even in Antarctica.

The participants played the game “How long does it take to disappear”, in which they combined images of everyday disposable items and the time they take to disintegrate in the sea. Some of what they learned:

• It takes 20 years to decompose a plastic bag that most of us use daily in the supermarket when buying fruits or vegetables.
• It takes 50 years to decompose a styrofoam cup that we use for only 15 minutes when we drink coffee to-go.
• A glass bottle takes about 1000 years to decompose.

Marine litter monitoring

The purpose of monitoring is to collect data on the types and amounts of waste in certain marine regions.

Divers put all the collected marine litter into mesh bags they can use under the sea. The first step in the monitoring process is categorizing the waste into plastic, metal, glass, rubber, and textile. For each category, you need to count all the items and separate them into more detailed categories (for example, for plastic, we count bottles, corks, lollipop sticks, bags, gloves, masks, etc). After all the waste is sorted and counted, we weigh it and take it to the recycling yard.

During the six monitoring sessions, we were surprised with what we found each time. We found a lot of lost fishing gear, such as fishing lines, hooks, and bait. One day, we untangled 10 kg of fishing line with hidden hooks that could have been deadly for marine animals. Items for recreation and relaxation, such as inflatable rings, flippers, and parts of shoes, were often pulled from coastal areas. Once, we found a huge piece of metal that turned out to be part of a car.

In total, we collected data on more than 300 kg of marine litter debris that the Diving Center’s volunteers have picked up from the seabed. We found different things each time, but one thing remained the same – most of them were plastic and glass.

We are glad to have joined this initiative and to have been able to share our knowledge about environmental protection and preservation of the Adriatic Sea with young people. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the Calypso diving school next season.