Clean-up and monitoring actions on Tejo River
In the scope of the Mediterranean Action Day 2019 (MAD 2019), LPN and FCT NOVA / MARE organized on May 29thand 31stand June 3rda set of three clean-up and monitoring actions on the north and south banks of Tejo river.
The launch of the initiative was in Praia do Segundo Torrão - Trafaria where on the 29thabout 60 participants collected 23.1kg of litter in an extension of 50m of beach. Students from the EB2.3 Piscinas-Lisboa school and their visitors from Erasmus project collected a total of 806 marine litter items, of which the rigid plastic fragments was the most collected, followed by cotton swabs and cigarette butts.
On May 31st, in Praia do Samouco - Alcochete, it was the turn of Alcochete School Group students to clean 100m of beach. The activity counted with the participation of 100 students who collected 59kg of marine litter. Among the 2434 items collected cotton swabs reached the first position, followed by rigid plastic fragments and cigarette butts in third
On June 3rd, the initiative began with a presentation about marine litter in the auditorium of the Basic School 2,3 D. Martinho Vaz Castelo Branco - Póvoa de Santa Iria, followed by a walking the river bank. The group, of around 100 participants, was then divided into three groups and distributed through the riverside (2 zones of Parque Ribeirinho and Praia dos Pescadores and adjacent park). At the end of the action all the participants gathered to weight the collected litter and to discuss the differences between the waste found in the three monitored zones. In this action was collected a total of 24.9kg of litter that will not reach the sea. Among the 2405 items collected the cigarette butts got the first place, with more than 680 units, being in second the paper and in third places were the balloons.
The activity was organized in the framework of the Annual Programme of MIO-ECSDE supported by the LIFE+ Operating Grant for NGOs. Focusing on several relevant environmental issues at each location in the various countries of Europe where it was implemented, it is an invitation to participatory science and it was successfully fulfilled in Portugal by more than two hundred and fifty participants.