Some twenty Tecnun and Ceit employees participate in the waste collection and sorting activity in La Concha.

Last Wednesday, May 29th, about twenty employees of Tecnun and Ceit participated in the waste collection and sorting activity in La Concha, organized by Tantakathe University's Solidarity Time Bank. The activity took place in the framework of the second edition of Tantaka Eguna, the workshop dedicated to solidarity in the campus, whose goal is to facilitate the employees of Tecnun and Ceit the partnership in social activities. The activity was developed together with the NGO of Cooperation to development Zabalketa and the Ocean Iniciatives program of the international organization Surfrider, dedicated to the protection of the ocean through the study of the origin of marine debris. It is also an action within the project Urban Klima 2050 of which Tecnun is a member. 

"With this field work we want to take care of the environment and collect data to improve the knowledge of marine litter pollution," said the Zabalketa Project Assistant at the beginning of the activity, Jone Iraeta. He also recalled that "every year, between 10 to 12 million tons of waste end up in the ocean and although La Concha may appear to be clean, there is an infinite amount of buried waste". 

To access them, the organization provided garbage bags and strainers to identify the smallest waste. Thus, in one hour and average, the Tecnun and Ceit volunteers found a total of 615 cigarette butts, 96 fishing-related wastes, 200 polystyrene fragments and more than 500 pelletsamong others.

It should be noted that the data obtained after the collection will be uploaded to the platform set up by Surfrider. Present in 12 European countries, the organization is made up of volunteer experts in the field of ocean conservation and protection and works with research centers and other associations to study the origin of waste in order to raise public awareness and influence public policies.