ECOPATROL IS BACK IN AUTUMN 2016. We start with Microplastics.

This Saturday we continued with “Murter eco-patrol”, one of the activities last spring of this year “it is important that the young get to know the importance of their sea”. Eco patrol this year has about 20 members from the higher grades of elementary school “Murterski škoji”. In this second part of Eco-Patrol 2016, continuing from the one last spring, the children will have the possibility to learn more about lots of topics. They will learn about microplastics, about status of their close nature, jellyfish and their importance, sharks, bats, dolphins, renewable energies, the Baltic Sea comparing with Adriatic sea,  global warming, the current problem of acidification of our seas and will also participate in patrolling the coast, searching for dolphins and mapping landfills, among other activities.

We started the activities with some games to warm up, introduce ourselves as a team and to meet each other. This year, the eco-patrol will be led by Argonauta team together with EVS volunteers Malgorzata Serwatka from Poland and Eva Lozano from Spain. After the active part and the introduction of new patrol and the Argonauta team, the children were introduced to the topic of the day -Microplastics.

Microplastics are a very dangerous form of pollution, and is it necessary to pay attention, especially because it enters the food chain because it can look like food for marine organism, which ingest it. In fact, they are tiny particles of plastic that are found all along the different parts of the sea, but recent studies shows that they are massively move by the sea currents and collect in specific points in the ocean, so-called garbage patch, the biggest one is found in the Pacific. Due to the daily increasing use of plastic, the problem is also increasing and the damages are getting more and more visible.

After questions and discussion on the topic, the Eco Patrol went to Gradina to investigate whether there are or there are not microplastics in our close environment. Surprisingly or not…! Patrollers found macro and microplastics  on the beach and had the opportunity to learn first-hand how difficult it is to remove them and to clean the environment until the point it was before the pollution.