In June, Bio-Mi participated at kick-off meeting of the the Innovative Solutions for Plastic Free European Rivers (INSPIRE Europe), a new four-year project coordinated by the Flanders Marine Institute. 25 partners spread across Europe and one partner from Thailand will join forces to reduce the plastic pollution in European rivers.

At this moment about 150 million tons of potentially harmful plastic is present in our ocean. Although this number is already hard to fathom, without any measures it is expected to further increase on an annual basis with 10%. Rivers and estuaries play an important role in the transport of plastics from land-to-sea, but also the ecosystems and biodiversity of rivers themselves are impacted by plastic pollution. The health of Europe’s single connected system of ocean, seas, coastal and inland waters is an important challenge for the European Union. This is reflected in the Green Deal targets and Horizon Europe Mission which has the ambition to restore our oceans and waters by 2030.

INSPIRE aims to bring different technologies and solutions together focusing on the detection, collection and prevention of litter, plastics and macroplastics in rivers and on riverbanks. We will work on six focus areas at which different technologies and actions will be implemented, being: Scheldt, Po, Rhine, Douro, Savinja and Danube rivers.

The INSPIRE team will eagerly reach out to researchers, politicians, industry and citizens to be involved and participate in the development and implementation of solutions to break the plastic wave for the sake of the environment. Based on lessons learned from the focus areas, INSPIRE technologies and actions will be scaled up and deployed at associated sites, not covered by the consortium.

We are looking forward to woriking with the team, specifically on formulation and validation of biodegradable bioplastics mixtures.

Stay up to date: https://inspire-europe.org/