Ocean plastic is a global pollution problem, which heavily impacts aquatic marine life and diminishes biodiversity, e.g., through entanglement, toxicity flows of hazardous substances, and plastic ingestion, which further impacts the local biomes of the South Baltic Sea. Plastics entering the South Baltic Sea stem from both land- and sea-based sources, which over time dissolve into microlitter plastics. This was documented and illustrated in the EU project BLASTIC.
This seed money project maps the challenges for ocean plastic when it is already in the water and before it dissolves into a microlitter. The seed project is a continuation of BLASTIC as the focus is to identify the problems and opportunities of recycling land- and sea-based plastics. This approach improves the innovative level of blue and green SMEs within the program region as to how to collect and recycle macro litter plastic waste, which will contribute to the longevity and securing usage of the macro litter plastic waste, post-collection.
