“Low plastic footprint” is the name of the new awareness campaign that wants to discard plastics from commercial spaces. A group of researchers from the Center for Marine Sciences (CCMAR) launched an appeal to the community to create a “Footprint with less plastics” and the result is a significant adhesion by restaurants and cafes in the Gambelas area, in Faro, where the University of Algarve Campus and the headquarters of CCMAR are located.
Katy Nicastro and Gerardo Zardi at the Center are developing a line of research that studies the effects of plastic waste at sea. Plastic is not a biodegradable material, so any impact caused by its use will interfere with the planet and in particular with marine organisms.
Moved by this motto of reducing the ecological footprint, using less plastic in their daily lives, the two researchers contacted some units in the restoration sector to whom they proposed the challenge of putting an end to disposable plastics.
Starting with the closest community and moved by the sensitivity of the students who live and/or study at the Gambelas Campus, the researchers got the support of all the restaurants and cafes contacted and hope to increase the number of businesses that adhere to the initiative.
Around the campus, Montebranco, San Remo and Arte Café restaurants joined the campaign. Even one of the bars managed by the Social Action Services joined the initiative and will serve as a pilot for the project, within UAlg. Soon, the initiative may be extended to the remaining seven bars that these Services manage on the other campuses of the University.
«The project combines research with good environmental practices and intends, in addition to raising awareness of the issue of plastics, to reduce their effective consumption, starting with one restaurant at a time», explains CCMAR.
The initiative will certify these commercial spaces with the attribution of a Diploma that they do not use plastic cutlery, mixers, plates, glasses, bags or straws.
On the platform they launched online, it is possible to consult the spaces that have already joined the initiative on an interactive map and also get useful advice on the easy replacement of these plastic materials with others that are more environmentally friendly and whose use does not have the impact of plastic provokes.
The project, by the team made up of several researchers (Gerardo Zardi, Katy Nicastro, Nadja Velez and Lorenzo Cozzolino), will be officially presented this Friday, June 8, on World Oceans Day.
The presentation will take place at the Red Amphitheater (-1.16, ed.9), on the Campus de Gambelas, from 18 pm and will be in charge of the researchers who intend to explain in a brief way the context of the same and which are the adhering spaces.
In the same session, the film “Albatross” will also be screened, a documentary that narrates the problem of plastic waste and its impact on species such as albatrosses, whose stomachs are full of our plastic waste.
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