Smart technology for MArinE Litter SusTainable RemOval and Management

Project Information

MAELSTROM

Grant agreement ID: 101000832

DOI

10.3030/101000832

Project closed

EC signature date 18 September 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 31 December 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost

€ 6 809 461,25

EU contribution

€ 5 988 295,63

Coordinated by

CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - MAELSTROM (Smart technology for MArinE Litter SusTainable RemOval and Management)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

MAELSTROM was a project funded under the Topic CE-FNR-09-2020 Pilot action for the removal of marine plastics and litter. MAELSTROM strived to provide answers and diversified solutions to the complex question to the removal and sustainable treatment of marine litter legacy. MAELSTROM has integrated complementary technologies for marine litter removal in different European coastal ecosystems, compounded with full-fledged circular economy and societal oriented solutions. MAELSTROM developed and implemented six technologies that have reached TRL7 and one that reached TRL5. MAELSTROM has evaluated the effectiveness and environmental sustainability of the technologies through dedicated monitoring campaigns before and after the cleaning operations. Overall, the MAELSTROM Integrated Environmental Assessment showed that the removal technologies not only did not affect negatively the environment, but, specifically in the Venice coastal area, that the overall environmental conditions improved after the removal operations.MAELSTROM documented the full research cycle of the environmental assessment thought the implementation of 6 Research Objects, 70 FAIR datasets and 6 peer reviewed scientific articles (with more in progress) and more than 49 deliverables (39 public), 1 legacy document and 1 policy brief all available in Zenodo.
At the same time a life cycle assessment (LCA) based on the international ISO standards 14040 and 14044 was performed on the technologies to evaluate the environmental impacts of the technologies.
MAELSTROM contributed to increase scientific knowledge, develop research capacity and transfer marine technology and to improve professional skills and competences, through 10 MSc Thesis and 2PhD programs.
MAELSTROM participated at 2 UNEP international negotiating committees for the Global Plastic Treaty, it participated to 73 conferences, and established partnerships with 30 international projects/networks. It organized 5 international side events, 4 demonstration events, 4 international stakeholder engagement workshops, and 4 ML thematic webinars. The consortium has constituted the MAELSTROM Working Group on Marine Litter Management which unites 27 members from 18 institutions across 8 countries. MAELSTROM made contributions to science-policy integration by developing 2 position papers with policy recommendations and 1 legacy document.
MAELSTROM organized several clean ups and monitoring campaigns in 4 EU countries contributing to raising citizen awareness, engaging over 1400 people and removing more than 7 tons of marine litter. Additionally, it involved 500 school students in educational initiatives. MAELSTROM generated 78 news articles, published 1,125 social media posts, and was featured on 6 European TV channels. Multimedia efforts included the production of 6 videos, 8 newsletters, 24 MaelDrops, 11 flash interviews, 2 trilingual booklets, and 10 press releases.
The project fully achieved all its objectives receiving for its activities 3 international awards.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the four years of the Project, the Consortium developed and implemented two technologies to remove the marine litter from the environment: a) a Bubble Barrier co-powered with floating solar panel system that has been installed in the estuary of the Ave River in the Porto Region in Portugal preventing the floating and suspended litter to reach the ocean, and b) the MAELSTROM Robotic Seabed Cleaning Platform for seafloor accumulated litter removal that was successfully tested in the Venice coastal area both in the Venice Lagoon and the open sea. The Bubble Barrier in the Ave River was officially inaugurated together with Vila do Conde Municipality at the end of November 2023 and is now still working to prevent the litter to reach the ocean. The Bubble Barrier in the Ave River collected by the end of 2024, ~ 1,450 kg of debris. The MAELSTROM Robotic Seabed Cleaning platform allows selective removal of identified litter as well as efficiency of the removal with a cable-based underwater robot installed and operated from a floating barge and provided with selective cleaning tools. The MAELSTROM Robotic Seabed Cleaning platform was realized and assembled on a floating barge. The platform operations were demonstrated in a public event in June 2023 co-organized with the Venice Municipality in Venice, Italy. The underwater cable robot was patented by TECNALIA on 26ht May 2022 - EP22382506.8 - “Underwater cable robot”. The MAELSTROM Seabed Cleaning platform carried out two cleaning campaigns in 2022 and 2023 collecting a total of 2240 kg of marine litter.

MAELSTROM has dedicated efforts and resources to define a suitable process to integrate the different typologies of collected ML into the circular economy scheme. With the material collected during the clean-up activities and the litter removal operations of the Robotic Seabed Cleaning platform, an example of circular economy was realized, transforming shredded fishing nets, buoys and ropes into new products, such as panels and laminates, that were marketized. The ML used in these panels has been tracked using the MAELSTROM App from the collection, through the transport, recycling process and new product creation, so this product will have “Maelstrom-guaranteed ML” tag. At the same time, some material collected during the cleaning activities in Venice was used for the low temperature pyrolysis process to produce marine gasoil that was used to co-power the MAELSTROM Seabed Cleaning Platform. Another key contribution to the circular economy strategy is the improvement of sorting of the collected ML. For this, an AI-driven robotic sorting system has been designed and manufactured and successfully tested.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

MAELSTROM developed environmentally sustainable Seabed and Surface removal, sorting and recycling technologies. MAELSTROM has brought progress and advances beyond the state-of-the-art through:
- The Seabed Cleaning Platform that can selectively remove ML in coastal areas and shallow waters. The high selectivity of the technology minimizes the environmental impact of the cleaning activities while automated and robotized processes ensure its efficiency.
- The Bubble Barrier system that represents the new state-of-the-art technology for surface litter interception in estuaries that has been implemented in the Ave River with the support of the Vila do Conde Municipality in Portugal.
- The AI-driven sorting robot developed to automatically separate ML to ensure that the waste could be clearly identified, surveyed, tracked and prepared for recycling and that the recovery of recyclable materials is maximized.
-The three MAELSTROM recycling processes, i.e. the thermoplastics ML recycling in composites, recycling of macro litter into laminates by thermal press moulding and chemical recycling, create new materials that are characterized for marketization. This represents the first real step in direction of a ZERO WASTE policy on ML.
MAELSTROM developed and implemented six technologies that have reached TRL7 and one that reached TRL5.

The Bubble Barrier and Solar Panel System in Vila do Conde (PT)

Graphic concept of the MAELSTROM project

Sintol ML chemical recycling prototype

MAELSTROM ML Tracking app

Example of the GEES ML mechanical recycling products

AI driven Sorting Robot

Seabed Cleaning Platform in Venice (IT)

Legacy Document QR code

ML chemical recycling at MAKEEN