This will be Calp’s most influential new point on social networks

Last year, the Calp City Council installed the name of the municipality in giant letters on the promenade of La Fossa beach, at Ponent street. Since then, this place, with the silhouette of the Peñón de Ifach in the background, has become one of the most photographed in the municipality and one of the most shared images on social networks.

This year these letters have been installed on the promenade of the Arenal-Bol beach but with the peculiarity that this time the letters are made with plastics extracted from the Mediterranean, what is more, 20% of the material of the letters comes from nets extracted by the fishermen of the municipality, who have collaborated in the project “Calp free of plastic”.

This initiative represents the collaboration of three entities united to fight against plastic in the Mediterranean, on the one hand the Calp City Council, on the other the Calp Fishermen’s Association and the social start-up, Gravity Wave.

330 kg of recycled plastic and fishing nets have been used

The letters, for whose installation the wall of the promenade has been lowered to avoid visual impact, have a weight of 330 kilos and a height of 120 centimeters; 330 kg of recycled plastic and fishing nets recovered from the Mediterranean Sea. With this project, Calp is involved in the fight to clean the plastic footprint of our seas and oceans, carries out awareness-raising work and aims to be a symbol of responsible tourism.

The startup Gravity Wave not only cleans the plastic from the sea, but is also in charge of revaluing it. It works through three pillars. The first is the collection of plastics for which they collaborate with 800 fishermen in 100 ports in Spain, Greece, Italy and Egypt who are paid for their plastics, the second pillar is that of transformation, converting plastic waste into furniture of office or decorative elements and the third pillar is preventive and is based on talks and corporate volunteering.

Nets are the waste we find the most in the sea, they represent 40% of all the waste we clean, and they come mainly from industrial fishing boats that threaten traditional fishing. Calp fishermen are working to clean their coasts and collaborate with different initiatives to end plastic in the sea.