Carla Lourenço, marine biologist at CCMar – Center for Marine Sciences at the University of Algarve, received, last Saturday, March 4th, a special mention of the Award Land of Femmes of the Yves Rocher Foundation, for the environmental awareness project “Straw Patrol: Educate, Reduce, Protect”.
O «Straw Patrol» project, which began in January 2016 in the Algarve, aims to raise awareness of the problem of marine litter, especially the pollution caused by plastics, and aims to awaken the ecological mentality of everyone, leading to better environmental practices and the protection of marine ecosystems.
The work of «Straw Patrol» project it is based on environmental education, through lectures on marine litter in schools and public events, but also involves the protection of aquatic ecosystems through coastal cleaning.
In just over a year, the project has already promoted 22 lectures that reached around 660 students, as well as nine beach cleanings, which had the help of more than 300 volunteers who collected more than 600 kilos of garbage, in a total of more than 16 thousand objects collected.
Televisions, microwaves, chairs, car parts were some of the items collected by the volunteers. However, around 50% of the garbage collected corresponds to plastic items such as bags, bottles, lids, food packaging and straws.
The prize Land of Femmes aims to distinguish women who stand out and promote the protection of the environment and in 16 years they have already rewarded 350 women in 50 countries, investing more than 1,8 million euros in total.
With the award of this award, Carla Lourenço will be able to take the project to many other schools in the Algarve and Alentejo coast and thus sensitize hundreds of students to the need to protect the oceans.
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