Marina Port de Mallorca and Marina Palma Cuarentena welcomed 54 sixth-year primary school children from Colegio Santa Magdalena Sofia, to show them the different systems the two marinas have installed for removing waste from the water in the port and helping to conserve the Mediterranean Sea.
The pupils were divided into two groups of 27 each to listen to two talks. The first group went to the installations of Marina Port de Mallorca to see the Geneseas water cleaning and aspiration system, an aspirator robot that moves over the calm water in the marina, filtering it. Geneseas is capable of gathering plastics, microplastics and hydrocarbons.
The talk was given by Alan D’Alfonso, CEO and creator of Geneseas, who told the children about the functioning of the device, which is fitted with a modern system that enables it to move around using the renewable energy it generates from the solar panels installed on its surface. In addition, the robot can be manoeuvred remotely with a handset or through an app, which also informs the marina of the quality of the water it filters and analyses pH, temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, Redox and other parameters. The robot is capable of collecting up to 140 litres of waste.
At the same time, the second group of pupils visited Marina Palma Cuarentena, where they were awaited by Paola Marcon, the director of Seabin in Spain, who introduced them to the marinas’ second cleaning system, the Seabin trash can, a system capable of filtering up to 25,000 litres per hour which is installed in one of the jetties of the marina, with the ability to clean 1.5 kg a day of plastics and rubbish.
During the talks, as well as learning about the two systems Marina Port de Mallorca and Marina Palma Cuarentena use to free their calm waters from plastics and hydrocarbons, they were also told about the importance of not throwing any objects into the sea, as they take hundreds of years to decompose and give rise to an extremely high level of pollution, seriously harming the marine flora and fauna. To complete their visit, the children enjoyed a light lunch, during which they talked enthusiastically about what they had learned over the day. Some of them expressed an interest in volunteering this summer and helping to keep beaches clean by preventing waste from ending up in the sea.
This activity forms part of the programme run by both Marina Port de Mallorca and Marina Palma Cuarentena every year in order to play a small part in protecting the environment. For example, by having divers clean the seabed of the marinas, removing any objects and waste thrown into the water from the depths of the sea. The marina also organises monthly awareness-raising campaigns to teach people how to implement environmentally-healthy habits such as saving energy and water, responsible anchoring, recycling on board or respect for marine wildlife.
