Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

The initiative corresponds to the sustainable development goals for the 2030 Agenda.

This week brought the second stage in the thirteenth edition of the sea-bed cleaning initiative along the Barcelona coastline, organised by the diving section of the City Police Sports Club (CEGUB) since 2008.

On this occasion, 45 volunteers took part, 30 of them from the sports club. A new aspect to this edition was the participation of 15 firefighters from the Barcelona Fire Service. A boat and a quad from the City Police Beach Unit were also involved, providing support to divers from the groynes and the water.

The goal is to collect waste generated over the course of the season at all the city’s beaches (in the districts of Ciutat Vella and Sant Martí). This means that besides collaborating with the environmental maintenance of our coastline for citizens to enjoy, it’s possible to detect blackspots in terms of uncivil behaviour.

The exercise cleaned the surface rocks at the groynes, using metre-long rubbish tongs, as well as the part underwater, where non-degradable waste accumulates such as plastic packaging, glass and drinks cans.

Roughly 250 kilos of waste was collected over the week, in addition to the 600 kilos collected in the first stage in June. This means that 850 kilos of rubbish has been collected this year.

The rubbish collected from each dive is classified, counted and weighed. In addition, on this occasion the sculptor Patricia Cancelo will be producing a charity piece of work with part of the rubbish collected.