More than Fifty Volunteers Participate in the Guadalquivir Cleanup to Celebrate World Water Day
Around fifty volunteers gathered this morning on the banks of the Guadalquivir River as it passes through Seville in the first working day of the program “Magellan Expedition, a river without trash”, organized by the Seville Aquarium in collaboration with the municipal cleaning company, Lipasam, and the Port Authority of Seville, to celebrate World Water Day. A day in which, in addition, educational workshops have been held at the Muelle de las Delicias from eleven in the morning until six in the evening focusing on the fight against trash accumulation.
Starting from the Lipasam Environmental Education center, members of the Seville Aquarium, educators from Lipasam’s “Environmental Brigade” and other groups such as the Man and Territory Association, the Paddle Surf Seville school, the NGO ACCEM and the Tandem Association, along with volunteers who have joined the action in the stretch of the riverbank that goes from the Cristo de La Expiración Bridge to the La Cartuja Footbridge, began the tour at eleven in the morning.
The Aquarium’s Education Director, Susana Montero, explained to the volunteers that today’s action was not carried out due to lack of river cleaning, as it is cleaned daily by Lipasam services, but as an awareness action to convey to citizens the importance of depositing waste in bins and containers so that they do not end up blown by the wind into the river.For us, the key is in raising awareness. It is everyone’s responsibility to keep the river clean. Every time we throw something into the river, that waste reaches the sea and affects all the animals living in it stated Susana Montero.
Along the marked section and for two hours, pieces of plastic, straws and plastic wrappers, aluminum containers, paper and cardboard packaging, wipes, diapers and cotton swabs or glass bottles were collected, totaling 65 kilos of plastic, more than 133 kilos of glass and 11.5 kilos of other litter waste, which have been removed and properly classified to be later recycled by Lipasam in their waste treatment centers.
Activities next to the Aquarium and on the riverbank
The day aims to promote the conservation of the aquatic environment and the responsible use of natural resources, involving the citizens of Seville in contributing to mitigate damage to nature, which is why a series of activities related to good environmental practices have been added at the Muelle de las Delicias, developed by the staff of the Aquarium’s Education department and Lipasam’s Environmental Brigade.
The educators from the Seville municipal company have been in charge of representing “The three Rs: reduce, recycle and reuse”, and of energizing the groups with awareness games such as the “Score your trash” workshop to make known the appropriate container where different types of waste should be deposited. Additionally, they have implemented crafts consisting of a mural with water drops that come to form a large river and in each of the drops a message for the river is included.
For its part, the activities coordinated by the Seville Aquarium have consisted of a circuit to show that a large part of household waste ends up in the Guadalquivir and that these are generated within daily habits.
Thus, it tries to raise awareness and teach different environmental tips to help eliminate trash with games like a pyramid of cubes of good and bad practices for a common activity: toothpaste, shopping, public transport… It also explains the importance of reducing or eliminating the use of plastic bags, with which it is always more convenient to reuse them or use cloth bags.
During the day, a large riverbank has been recreated in which natural elements are mixed with waste, with which they have “played” to know how long they take to degrade.
As a finishing touch, the Aquarium’s mascot, Chelo, has distributed to the participants a participation diploma with a decalogue of different actions that can be carried out in day-to-day life to help the environment.