On 4 and 5 October Healthy Seas officially started with the international Healthy Seas kick-off event in Slovenia, shortly after the successful completion of the North Sea pilot project.
On the first day all participants gathered at the Marine Biology Observatory in Portorož where Dr. Heather Koldeway from ZSL- Zoological Society of London gave a key-note speech about the problem of marine debris. In addition, Mike Mannaart spoke on how Healthy Seas is actively helping to solve this problem.
After the official opening the group went to visit Fonda Fish Farm, a Slovenian eco-friendly fish farm located in Piran Bay. We enjoyed an informative tour given by Mrs. Fonda,
and watched a demonstration of divers salvaging a fishing net from the sea. To close the day we joined for dinner to celebrate the Healthy Seas kick-off event duly.
At the start of the second day participants left in groups to visit the Ajdovščina waste center where fishing nets and other waste are stored and prepared for the ECONYL® Regeneration System. Next on the agenda was a visit to the ECONYL® plant in Ljubljana where the treated waste is depolymerized and transformed into regenerated nylon for new textile products such as swimwear, socks and carpets.
We have had a great successful event and enjoyed celebrating with a group of very supportive and engaged people. We’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who joined us in Slovenia. Many journalists and bloggers from all over Europe attended our kick-off event and were keen to know more about the regeneration of fishing nets. We hope they will all share their experience with their readers.
If you want to update the public please use the official hashtag #HSKE. Or take a peek at what people have tweeted so far – have a look here.
We are confident that Healthy Seas will be a Europe-wide success!
If you want to see what your organization can do to help, please go to the ‘PARTNERS’ page.
Check out our ‘WHAT YOU CAN DO’ page to see how individuals can support the Healthy Seas Initiative.