The Coastal cleaning boats that the Association of Municipalities of the Western Costa del Sol, located in Marbella, has arranged along the Costa del Sol beaches have collected in the month of July a figure close to half of what was collected in Junewith the removal of 30.85 cubic meters of remains compared to 63.18 in June of the previous month, according to data provided by the service concessionaire company, as reported this Thursday by the president of the supra-municipal institution, José Antonio Mena .
The shoreline cleaning service began to provide service on June 1 and will remain until September 15, for which they have arranged four coastal boats and ten beach boats for waste collection along the coastline of the municipalities of Torremolinos, Benalmádena, Fuengirola, Mijas, Marbella, Estepona and Casares and Manilva. The cost of the service is 545,710.00 euros.
In this way, Mena explained that during the past month there has been collected a total of 30.85 cubic meters of waste compared to 63.18 in June, which means, in the words of Mena, “that the citizens have understood the message that we have been sending from this institution to keep the beaches clean, because practically the 75 percent of what is collected in the sea is plastic that we throw people”.
In this sense, it should be noted that the volume of plastics collected in July is 18.99 cubic meters compared to 46.47 in June. Otherwise, 6 were algae, 2.89 wood and 0.64 organic matter.
By municipalities, in Benalmádena collected a total of 2.97 cubic meters1.04 in Casares, 4.04 in Estepona, 3.24 in Fuengirola, 1.04 in Manilva, 10.97 in Marbella, 5.68 in Mijas and 1.95 in Torremolinos.
The boats work between eight in the morning and four in the afternoon from Monday to Friday, and from eight in the morning to six in the afternoon Saturdays, Sundays and holidays when there is a greater influx of people.
As for the characteristics of the boatsthere are two types such as those that operate on the coast, called ‘pelican’, and those that do it near the shore, called ‘gabinas’. As for the vessels to operate in coastal waters, their priority zone of action corresponds to those located from the coastline, and they must act mainly in the potentially most conflictive areas such as the vicinity of the port, submarine outfalls, collectors, submarine discharge pipes or torrent mouths.
The main function of these boats is the prevention of contamination episodes in bathing areas and the collection of floating solids, fats and other debris in open sea waters, up to six miles from the coast. As for the boats to operate on the beaches, the ‘gabinas’, their priority work is the floating solids collection in the area closest to the shore line.