Andratx unveils a plastic marine litter bench

Port d’Andratx is one of the ports participating in Coca-Cola’s Circular Seas programme. A project to clean up the coasts and seabed, raise public awareness and develop the circular economy in Spain and Portugal. In its fifth edition, it has focused on finding options to give a second life to marine litter. The aim is to find solutions to the dumping of plastics in the seas.

Andratx’s participation in this programme shows how it has managed to give a second life to non-PET plastic. This includes the remains of nets, bags or very degraded and mixed film, which until now it was not known how to recycle. The result is 15 benches, each one handcrafted from recycled plastic, 30-50% of which is non-PET plastic. The origin is the marine waste collected by more than 500 fishermen from 104 boats in fifteen Spanish ports.

One of these recycled plastic benches is already in Port d’Andratx. Specifically, it is located next to the Ports Illes Balears office in the municipality. Hundreds of kilos of rubbish have been processed to make it. “This material has been obtained thanks to the efforts of the fishermen. They are all volunteers who make a great effort to separate the waste on the boat, take it to land, dump it and ensure that the waste is properly managed,” says Estíbaliz López-Samaniego, project manager of the Asociación Vertidos Cero (Zero Waste Association).

In the elaboration process, AIMPLAS receives the plastic mixture from the ports, conditions it and grinds it, at which stage it is passed on to the NGO Plàstic Preciós, which transforms it into sheets and handcrafts a bank containing 30% of marine plastic, approximately 13.5 kilos. The bench has a QR code that makes it easy to follow the traceability of the material used.

The plastic bench in Port d’Andratx is an example of how to make the most of this waste and promote the circular economy.