by Carla Andrea Fundarotto
From October 2019 to April 2020, they made it possible to collect 2.3 tons of waste on the Tiber River in Rome
It is the plastic catcher barriers project which, launched in 2019, is giving more than positive results.
Data on the recovery of plastic on the Tiber to date
Since June 2020, 2.5 tons of plastic have been collected. But there is more because these barriers convey them directly to a storage area preventing them from reaching the sea. And so almost three thousand waste a month did not end up in the sea. “The project also foresees, through an agreement with the Corepla consortium, that the plastics collected, once selected, are sent for their recycling”, explained Cristiana Avenali, head of the river contract for the Lazio region and promoter of the initiative.
How do plastic catch dams work?
Basically, the plastics present in the river, after an initial selection, are collected and sent for recycling thanks to an agreement with the national consortium for the collection of Corepla waste.
The barriers are anchored with poles to the banks of the Tiber and the Aniene. By doing so, they allow plastics and other floating waste to be stopped, conveying them to a storage area close to the river bank. The barriers, for the purposes of hydraulic safety, provide for the possibility of partially unhooking the moorings, in order to free any obstacles to the flow of water.
One hundred kilos of plastic recovered a day
Adding up the monthly data, we arrive at almost six tons in a period of almost eighteen months. This means that since the project started, these dams have intercepted on average one hundred kilograms of waste per day.
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