Sea Turtles & Plastic Update
We’re excited to announce two new Sea Turtles & Plastic grants for coastal communities around the world. Our Sea Turtles & Plastic program provides crucial financial support for local organizations to address and benefit from the plastic waste arriving on their beaches. These two projects were funded from a grant from the Change Happens Foundation. To date, we have given out 14 of these grants, totaling more than US $70,000. These projects have collected more than 20,000 lbs of plastic waste, recycling more than 7,000 lbs and we’re just getting started!
Our newest Sea Turtles & Plastic Grantees are:
Fundação Tartaruga, Boa Vista, Cape Verde
The Cape Verde archipelago hosts the world’s third largest nesting population of loggerhead turtles. Fundação Tartaruga works on the island of Boa Vista. In 2021, more than 28,000 nests were laid on the beaches they patrol. During the sea turtle nesting season, the rangers are paid to patrol the beach, so the aim of this plastic project is to ensure that the rangers can also pursue meaningful and environmentally compatible employment during the off-season. The purpose of this grant is to support their rangers to produce products from plastic waste outside the sea turtle nesting season on Boa Vista/Cabo Verde and sell them to tourists. Additionally, the plastic problem in this area is very important, during the Sea Turtle Week last June, in one event beach cleanup, they removed almost 3,500 kg (more than 7,500 lbs) of plastic from the beach. Rangers from the local group “Onze Estrelas” are collecting suitable plastic waste on nesting beaches, shredding it, putting the granules into the injection machine, heat it, and create new items like key-chains in the shape of a sea turtle, shark or penguin. With a grant of US $5,000 we are supporting the acquisition of a motor-powered granulator machine for this project.
Turtle caught in discarded plastic fishing gear on Cape Verde. Credit Fundacao Tartaruga.
Conservation des Espèces Marines, Grand-Béréby, Ivory Coast
Since 2014, Conservation des Espèces Marines has been carrying out a community management project for the protection of sea turtles. CEM has managed to raise awareness among local communities, drastically reduce the human threat to sea turtles, and involve local communities in preservation activities along a 30 km beach located west of Grand-Béréby (Mani Beach -Kablake). This project aims to employ 10 people from Grand Bereby and the towns of Mani, Pitiké and Kablaké to collect the large amounts of plastic waste found on nesting beaches. The collected waste will be classified by type and sent to Abidjan, where the only company in the country that recycles plastic waste is located, called Recyplast. This project will make it possible to recycle plastic fishing nets that have accumulated mainly in rock reefs for many years. It will also allow recycling of other kinds of plastics that accumulate on beaches such as polypropylene, bottles, etc. which come mostly from fishing boats. With US $5,000, CEM will collect 1 ton of regular plastic waste and up to 5 tons of plastic nets. 10 people will directly benefit from the project, getting paid to do the cleanups.
Volunteers clean up a beach in Ivory Coast. Photo credit Conservation des Especes Marines.