Red Cross volunteers assisted in the collection of waste in Cabrera. | Govern de les Illes Balears

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According to provisional results of a project to study the impact of waste on marine protected areas in the Mediterranean, 93.8% of the waste collected from three beaches in Cabrera was plastic.

Representatives of the Cabrera National Park have this week been taking part in the sixth steering committee meeting of the Plastic Busters MPAs project, which is financed by the European Regional Development Fund. Analysis has been made of the progress of the project, which started in 2018. Plastic Busters MPAs (marine protected areas) addresses the impact of marine waste and considers marine waste management from monitoring to prevention.

At the three Cabrera beaches, 141 kilos of waste were collected - 11,434 items. The 93.8% plastic equated to 87.3% of the total weight. Almost a quarter of the plastic waste was between 2.5 and 50 centimetres; 14.4% of the waste was bottle caps.

The full project will last four years, with the aim of providing a quantitative and qualitative diagnosis of the impact of waste in MPAs. Led by researchers at the University of Siena in Tuscany, four MPAs are involved. Cabrera is one, the other three are the Tuscan Archipelago National Park, the National Marine Park of Zakynthos, and the Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals, which covers sea from Toulon to Sardinia and Tuscany.