The fish market in Keratsini, west of Athens, buzzes with buzzing, olfactory activity: trawlers unload crates of sardines and anchovies while heavy goods vehicles wait to be loaded.

In front of the “Panagiota II”, a family fishing boat, Lefteris Arapakis sorts his “harvest of the night”: bottles, boots, plastic pipes, machinery, fishing nets. So much waste from the seabed of the Saronic Gulf, in the Aegean Sea.

“The whole thing weighs about 100 kg,” says the 29-year-old economist, co-founder of Enaleia, an NGO that helps fishermen collect marine litter trapped in their nets.

Drawing on environmental reports, Lefteris Arapakis is upset that by 2050 “there will be more plastic than fish” in the sea.

“We’re swimming in plastic!” he says.

The marine litter found does not only come from Greece but from all over the Mediterranean and moves with the currents.

Since its creation, the NGO has already worked with more than 1,200 fishermen whom it raises awareness of “the degradation of the maritime environment”.

Active in 42 ports throughout Greece, it notably provides fishermen with large bags for marine waste which they can, once they return to port, deposit in a dumpster.

And for every kilogram of plastic they deliver, they receive a meager reward.

“Often it’s a symbolic sum for (drinking) a drink…”, explains Lefteris Arapakis during a visit organized for journalists while 175 countries are gathered in Paris to draw up the first outlines of a treaty against plastic pollution.

Before “we caught large quantities of plastic but we only kept the fish. All waste was thrown into the sea”, recognizes Mokhtar Mokharam, team leader on the Panagiota II who participates in the “Clean up” program of Enaleia.

Since October 2022, 20 tons of plastic and old fishing equipment have been extracted by this NGO, which since its creation in 2018 has collected a total of more than 597 tons.

The recovered plastic is then sent to a recycling plant where it is turned into pellets to make new products, including socks, swimwear or furniture.

Among the recovered waste, 16% are fishing nets. This is followed by high and low density polyethylene plastics (12.5% ??and 8% respectively), metals (7.5%) and other types of recyclable plastics.

The rest, still 44%, is made up of non-recyclable plastics.

Marine waste “is difficult to recycle, it’s a challenge”, recognizes Hana Pertot, sales manager of the Skyplast recycling plant in Megara.

These plastics, which often remain in the sea for a long time, degrade and their possible reuse is much more limited.

Coming from a family of professional fishermen for five generations, Lefteris Arapakis found himself unemployed in 2016, during the financial crisis.

During one of his first trips to the Cyclades archipelago, he saw fishermen throwing the waste trapped in their nets into the sea. A click. He decides to tackle the problem.

Besides Greece, Enaleia also operates in Italy. This year the project also started in Andalusia (Spain), Egypt and Kenya.

Nikolaos Mentis, a fisherman on the island of Salamis opposite Keratsini, is delighted to see “more fish” when he goes to sea.

“In the past, the anchor often snagged on waste of all kinds, especially nets, and the engine would go out,” testifies this professional.

Lefteris Arapakis welcomes the “change of mentality” of the fishermen which proves, according to him, that “any citizen or politician can contribute” to improving the environment.

“Fishermen are mobilizing, (it’s) a kind of democracy that exists in climate change affecting especially low incomes”, judges the young man.

However, he remains realistic in the face of the threat posed by pollution of the seas: “We are facing the symptom, but not the real problem”, he laments while the production of plastics in the world remains a major scourge.

06/02/2023 08:59:08 – Keratsini (Grèce) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP