
MALAGA IDEATHONS: How do we get rid of plastic litter by holidaymakers?
Innovation Campus is happy to host again a new interesting event from Malaga Ideathons!
Feel free to sign up here or at:
https://www.meetup.com/Malaga-Ideathons/events/253010089/
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We will have an Ideathon about the fact that holidaymakers cause a 40 per cent surge in the marine litter — 95 per cent of it plastic — entering the Mediterranean Sea each summer, according to a new report from WWF. The Mediterranean Sea, the cradle of civilization and centre of extraordinary environmental heritage is today one of the seas with the highest levels of plastic pollution in the world.
We will make a focused effort to construct ideas that will spectacularly reduce the pollution of the seas by plastic caused by holidaymakers.
Details
Home to almost 25,000 plant and animal species – of which 60 per cent are unique to the region – the Mediterranean holds only one per cent of the world’s water, but it contains seven per cent of all of the world’s microplastic waste. Plastics have also been found in oysters and mussels, while crisp packets and cigarettes have been found in large fish.
Large plastic pieces injure, suffocate and often kill marine animals,
including protected and endangered species, such as sea turtles. But it is
the microplastics, smaller and more insidious fragments that reach record levels in the Mediterranean Sea: the concentration of microplastics is almost four times higher than in the “plastic island” found in the North Pacific Ocean. By entering the food chain, these fragments threaten an increasing number of animal species as well as human health.
And microplastics – tiny plastic fragments, such as those often found in cosmetics – have reached record levels in the Mediterranean, of almost four times higher than the famous “plastic island” found in the North Pacific Ocean.
The tiny broken down pieces of plastic are eaten by fish and then enter the food chain until they reach our dinner plates on holiday. On average, someone eating fish in Europe could ingest up to 11,000 pieces of microplastic per year.
There are a lot of ideas to reduce plastic waste. Most of them consist of dramatic calls to change behaviour or introducing laws to prevent the use of single-use plastic. Less but even more effective are practical ideas. In this Ideathon we are going to double that at least, with a specific focus on plastics used in the tourism industry! And can we make a startup for it?
By using several creative thinking techniques like “the concept fan” and “concept extraction”. See you then.