A total of 112 volunteers have participated in the waste collection day on El Soccorro beach (Güímar) organized by Coca-Cola and with the collaboration of the Tenerife Cabildo, Volunteer Participation Office, Güímar City Council, IES Lucas Martín Hawthorn from Icod de los Vinos and Terramare Environment.
This initiative is part of the program Circular Seas of Coca-Cola, which since 2018 has managed to collect more than 1,520 tons of waste from beaches and other aquatic environments. In addition, the PET collected during cleaning is reintegrated into Coca-Cola’s value chain as part of its roadmap towards the circular economy.
Armando Gil, Communication Manager, RR.II. and Sustainability of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Iberia, has highlighted the importance of collaboration between different institutions in “favor of environmental sustainability and awareness to ensure that our marine environments are preserved and no waste ends up in them. We must be aware that we all have a responsibility that we must assume to leave future generations a better environment than the one we find ourselves in. We appreciate the collaboration of the volunteers who have given an example of what, together, we are capable of achieving.”
Beyond waste collection
The cleaning of beaches and aquatic environments is one of the three pillars that make up Circular Seas. Prior to these cleaning activities, and with the help of Asociación Chelonia, the spaces are monitored twice a year with the objective of sampling the waste found following the recommendations of the MITERD, the OSPAR Convention and the Barcelona Protocol. These monitoring provide information to important marine debris monitoring programs. This is the case of the Marine Litter Monitoring Program on Beaches, of the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge.
‘Circular Seas’
Circular Seas is a network project promoted by Coca-Cola in Spain and Portugal, for the cleaning of coasts, aquatic environments and seabeds, raising awareness and training on recycling and promoting the circular economy. The Program promotes the environmental conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity and, from 2022, integrates climate change into all its lines of action. Circular Seas is part of Coca-Cola’s global ‘World Without Waste’ strategy and, in Western Europe, the Avanzamos strategy, specifically in its packaging pillar. Coca-Cola thus takes another step in its efforts to contribute to the conservation of the planet and in its commitment to collect and recycle the equivalent of 100% of the packaging it sells.
The project has the collaboration of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA), through the General Secretariat of Fisheries and the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (Miterd) and is developed in collaboration with the Chelonia Association, Asociación Vertidos Cero, Ecomar Foundation and Liga para a Protecção da Natureza (LPN).
Circular Seas in figures: since 2018, more than 1,200 entities (municipalities, schools, organizations, sports and maritime clubs, etc.) have collaborated, more than 1,500 tons of waste have been removed, thanks to the collaboration of 30,000 volunteers who have intervened in the cleaning of more than 400 beaches and aquatic environments. In addition, through training and environmental awareness workshops, more than 68,000 people have been reached and 12 research projects and four startups that propose innovative solutions to the problem of marine litter have been supported and financed from a circular economy approach. Every year, more than 100 ships from 17 ports collaborate in the collection of waste from the seabed and, from 2022, the non-PET plastics collected by them are being transformed into banks that will be installed in the collaborating ports.
