Our Plastic Free Menorca Alliance reinforces its work

Our Plastic Free Menorca Alliance reinforces its actions focused on raising awareness, visualising and analysing plastic pollution in Menorca

We have secured funding from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Natural Environment of the Government of the Balearic Islands (CAIB) to carry out 8 plastic collections and expand the resources allocated to collection and analysis tasks

The Plastic Free Menorca Alliance, a project led by Menorca Preservation, has secured a €6,000 grant to support environmental education activities. This grant will allow field trips to be carried out with different groups on the island to raise awareness, visualise and analyse the plastic pollution that Menorca suffers, especially in relation to microplastics. For the Alliance, group plastic collections have been a very effective activity to raise awareness of this environmental problem. So far in 2024, more than 20 outings have been organized, in which a total of 580 people have participated and more than 285 kgs of plastic waste have been collected.  In addition, the aid also includes a part for the acquisition of new materials such as telescopic clamps or vests to identify participants in the activities. This support is essential to continue adapting the outings to different audiences and to be able to have tools that allow the activities to be more efficient and safer.

8 field trips with different groups on the island:

The subsidy is awarded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Natural Environment of the Government of the Balearic Islands to non-profit entities in the Balearic Islands that carry out environmental education activities. The activities that will be carried out with this grant are a total of 8 field trips: 3 aimed at schools, 2 with social entities and 3 for the population:

“The outings allow participants to observe plastic pollution, especially microplastics, in situ with technical guidance. We also offer an initial and final talk on this environmental problem to encourage participation, give information about the different alternatives to plastic and answer questions. With this support we hope to collect and analyse 150 kg of plastic with the participation of more than a hundred people,” explains Marta Pérez, coordinator of the Plastic Free Menorca Alliance.

Plastic pollution in Menorca: Research and analysis

For the Alliance, these field trips provide very useful information to understand the current situation of plastic pollution on the island’s coast:

Marta Pérez explains that “this data collected in the outings is incorporated into the database and map that we are creating on plastic pollution in Menorca. In addition, we are also sharing the data collected with various European projects such as Ocean Initiatives, MedPellets and Biomedia.”

All the waste collected is analyzed, one by one, in order to account for and categorize the waste found. Waste that has the potential to be recycled was also separated and stored so that it can be incorporated into new initiatives that will be carried out in 2025 by the Alliance.

How to participate in an outing: Anyone interested in participating in a plastics analysis outing can check out the  Alliance’s Instagram. On the other hand, if you want to organize an outing with the support of the Alliance, you must fill out the following form: https://forms.gle/LfciD8tvzTUVXYUAA