907.5 kilograms of waste was cleaned up from the Tal-Ghazzenin seabed in St. Paul’s Bay last Saturday in a clean-up organised by the NGO Zibel and Raniero’s Adventures.

In an operation which last over five hours and comprised of over 20 dive volunteers, a whole assortment of waste was picked up from the seabed in order to be properly disposed of.

The cleanup was restricted to dive volunteers only due to the rapidly changing Covid-19 situation, but this did not deter those who did attend in spending most of their Saturday cleaning up the seabed.

Out of the 907.5kg of waste, 243.7kg was fishing gear, 193.12kg was general waste, 181.74kg were tyres, 165.04kg was bulky waste, 74.12kg was recyclable ocean plastic, 33.5kg was recyclable ocean plastic bottles, 12.88kg was metal, 2.4kg were bottle caps, and 1 kg was glass.

Ocean Plastics cannot be usually recycled with regular plastics and so require their own special process. Zibel said that all ocean plastic will be recycled by their new partner, Odyssey Innovation.

The NGO thanked their partners in helping make the clean-up happen, with these partners being: Dive Systems - Malta, Malta Tourism Authority, The Alfred Mizzi Foundation, Clean Malta - Cleansing and Maintenance Division, Saving Our Blue, EcoPure Beverage Services Portughes Dry Cleaning, Prohealth Ltd, and lastly, Simenta Restaurant for the provision of ftajjar on the day.