The Blu Marine Service of San Benedetto del Tronto carried out a project on the Tremiti Islands selected as part of the MedPAN Regular Call for Small Projects and co-financed by the French Facility for Global Environment and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation. The project, which takes the name of Tremiti Plastic Free Islands, had as its general objective the improvement of waste management on islands and their reduction, favoring the use of innovative tools. The project included various activities carried out with the fundamental contribution of the islanders, which were substantially implemented with two lines of activities related to the fishing sector and domestic composting.
In the first case, in order to find alternative solutions to the use of expanded polystyrene boxes for the transport of fish products (disposable), the project has encouraged the use of an innovative packaging for the transport of fish products on the islands, with characteristics identical to EPS polystyrene, but biodegradable and compostable (Biofoam). Therefore, 500 boxes in Biofoam were delivered to the main suppliers of fish products from the Adriatic ports to be used to bring the fish product to the islands. Once used, these boxes can be transferred to the normal waste disposal circuit and sent for industrial composting, showing how the circular economy can also be developed in the fishing sector.
The project also sought to improve waste management on the island thanks to two activities related to home composting. The first activity concerned the recovery of marine litter: using disused and / or abandoned buoys from mussel farming fields, domestic composters have been created that can be used by citizens to create compost from their own kitchen waste. The second activity concerned the free supply of ainnovative composter that does not use electricity (Hotbin), capable of composting all household waste / organic fraction throughout the year and capable of biodegrading even bioplastics. In this way we wanted to raise awareness among the islanders on the real possibility of biodegrading and composting bioplastics directly on the island (plates, glasses and even the same boxes in Biofoam), minimizing the quantity of organic fraction to be transferred to landfills.
