Clean coastline

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The pollution of seas and coasts is a major problem for many coastal municipalities in the Öresund-Kattegat-Skagerrak region. Through a joint effort, they will now streamline beach cleaning, raise awareness and prevent more litter. Due to sea currents, a lot of rubbish flows to the coasts of the Öresund-Kattegat-Skagerrak region. For many years, littering has been a big problem, and clean, fine beach strips can become a thing of the past only if nothing is done. — Pollution is a major challenge for many actors, especially in coastal municipalities. They suffer from something that they can't directly influence, but that they need to address, says Helena Bredin, project manager for Ren Coastline. Creating ideas and courage: Through cross-border cooperation, municipalities and other actors gain muscles that they have previously lacked. In this way, they can tackle the problem from several directions. Helena Bredin believes that cooperation is necessary to find new solutions to the problem. These actors are small and weak from the start. Developing is difficult because they are rather a performer organisation, and you have neither the time nor the advice to work. Now they can imagine ideas and do new things together, it gives rye in the back to dare to stand up for these issues, even in her own organisation, she explains. More people will clean up: A direct visible effect of the project will be new collection systems and cleaning of debris on more surfaces than before. One example is to get groups that today get hold of rubbish to bring it to land as well. For example, it may be fishermen who get garbage in their gear but have trouble disposing of it on land, here we need to simplify for them. Therefore, the project will work with coordination, care and treatment of litter. The aim is to develop tools that facilitate collection work and implement circular tanks so that certain flows of litter are recycled. Targets to reduce emissions: One focus area is to find these values in the rubbish, so that an interest is created in clearing them away. Through this, the project also aims to create jobs. In the longer term, however, the most important thing is to work to reduce emissions of waste into nature. Among other things, the project will map local emission sources and see how they affect the environment. By coordinating our research technology, we want to create common research methodology to map, test and analyse litter. We want to be able to exchange knowledge and experiences that make us understand each other," says Helena Bredin and continues: We have the same problem, the same ocean, but different methods, languages and politicians. But rubbish knows no boundaries, so we need to get to know each other in order to work better together. Raising knowledge and awareness: Reducing the amount of rubbish is important for a number of reasons. Many coastal municipalities depend on the tourism industry and care about how their coastlines look like. From an environmental point of view, the greatest risk arises when the debris breaks down and ends up in our cycle. Helena Bredin is hopeful that the Ren Coast Line project will come a bit along the way. The important thing is that we are influencing a change and that it begins to be released less. We need to make people understand the consequences of their actions. It’s about everything from how we consume, to what we do with our resources. And we need to reach out with this knowledge, she explains.

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