Waste related to fisheries and mussel farming, such as plastic mussel nets, strings and cords and barrels are among the most abundant litter items in the wider area of Thermaikos Gulf. The initiative will address the issue of poor waste management and illegal dumping and burning of such materials in the National Park, with a focus on these items that are broadly used by the mussel farmers according to the results and the experience obtained by iSea during the efforts already done in the area to address the issue. In particular, the initiative will focus on mussel farming nets, the strings used to tie these nets and the barrels that are mainly used as buoys.
In addition, it will support the previous efforts and results that bring all the involved stakeholders together for providing further and long-term solutions in order to establish and sustain a derelict fishing gear management scheme and improve the already implemented efforts.
Additionally, the bottom up approach applied in the context of the project, will further support our efforts to understand the overall procedure of mussel farming in order to proceed to more interventions in the future, that will include the promotion of further environmentally friendly solutions that can be applied during the overall procedures of mussel farming.
The initiative will be also enriched with the organization of workshops for the local mussel farmers and fishers on environmental topics, including the participation of experts and representatives of common efforts in order to promote knowledge and experience exchange. The sustainability of the initiative lies in the better organization of derelict management schemes, that will ease the collection and transfer of the fishing gear for their recycling and the collection of plastic barrels for their reuse.
