Watertrek is delighted to have joined the Plastics Origins expedition launched by Surfrider Foundation on the Rhine, an opportunity to discover the app developed by Antoine Brugge to count and map the plastic waste on rivers, a well suited tool for paddlers.
Despite the rain and numerous mosquitoes, the team of volunteers from Surfrider headquarters and from Surfrider Bas-Rhin were able to paddle on the Brunnwasser and Rhin Tortu, and enjoyed a gorgeous bivouac by the water.
The Plastic Origins app allows you to choose your mode of travel - on foot or on the water, then click on one of the 8 categories listed each time a waste is found. At the end of the session, data are available on a map, allowing to then classify rivers in green, orange, and red, depending on the density of litter observed.
Watertrek intends to use this tool on a more regular basis during our next SUP expeditions.
Watertrek has boarded the Italian scientific sailing ship “le Bonita” in the third week of August 2020, aiming to contribute to the work of Expedition Med and establish new protocols to study microplastics in the Mediterranean Sea. This was a first for our employee Emmanuelle who was not really accustomed to sailing.
The main objective of that week at sea - the only one in this pandemic year - was to test and clarify protocols to be used on future campaigns. There are many ways to evaluate microplastic concentrations into the sea - more or less accessible to non-scientists - and the main challenge of citizen science is to find the right balance between precision and accessibility.
On a predefined area, a calibrated manta net is launched and tracted in constant conditions for 30 minutes. The content of the collector is then emptied and filtered, the organic materials (plants, plankton and occasionally a hippocamp!) are taken out. Until now, the rest of the content was sent to a laboratory for a precise, and often expensive, analysis. This time, samples were studied on board that’s where we were able to discuss the best procedures. With a sieve column of finer and finer meshing, it was possible to categorize the plastic fragments according to their size, color and nature. The smallest were seen under a microscope. The protocols were successful, but the results were horrible! About 50 fragments were counted in each of our samples, which means that we indirectly ingest about 5 grams of plastic each week!
This expedition had a special meaning for Watertrek and allows us to pursue our reflection on the conception of a microplastic net adaptable to SUP.
Watertrek volunteers have paddled down the Orne River (French Normandy) between Thury-Harcourt and the Pont de Brie as part of World Clean-Up Day last Saturday, on September 21, 2019. During their 3 hours of paddling, they collected numerous tires, a washing machine drum, an iron, various plastic and glass bottles, along with far too many plastic bags and wipes wrapped around trees & branches, those being particularly hard to remove.
Emmanuelle, Watertrek’s employee; Oriane, who studies legislation & sustainable development in Leiden, Antoine & Mathieu, paddlers from the Cotentin area, and Severine our co-founder were joined by Antoine Bruge, who is in charge of the development of a protocol meant to map macro-waste in rivers and works for Surfrider Foundation in Biarritz. The two structures hope to join forces and build a solid partnership to further study pollution along river banks and use common tools and protocols. 80% of the litter found at sea comes from the land, it is therefore important to act upstream and ensure the protection of those fundamental ecosystems.S
Our 2 Watertrekers Mathieu & Anthony have decided to go for a one-day paddle down a portion of the Orne (a coastal river in Normandy), leading from its rural environment into a larger city. The aim was to identify the possible presence of plastic, and learn more about the physicochemical qualities of its waters.
The starting point for this adventure was set at La Lie, in Saint Rémy sur Orne. a brewery specifically known for its utmost concern for the environmental impact in the production of craft beer. The final stage of the trip would see our team arriving in Louvigny, where the festival Eco-responsable took place over the weekend.
This SUP-trek was meant to be a link between various economic agents and water sports practitioners all concerned by the issue. It was the opportunity to raise the awareness of the public on water conservation as well as that to highlight existing virtuous practices.
Little plastic waste was encountered - it was more scrap metal that our paddlers observed on this leg of the river, in all likelihood linked to the industrial past of the Orne. The conclusions of the sampling results and analysis of the waters of the Orne indicate that this body of water has an average ecological condition. High nitrate levels are likely to be caused by leaching of fertilizer, sewage discharge and livestock spills.
Beyond the physical effort - 9 hours of paddling! - ndl the time devoted to water sampling and analysis, our watertrekkers were able to enjoy an exceptional spring scenery on an unique and relatively unknown river.
20700 cigarette butts, 2697 bottle tops, 375 food packagings, 138 corks, 90 tcups, and hundreds of bottles have been counted by our litter pickers on Sunday, September 30th in Paris along the canal Saint-Martin. The initiative was organized by our volunteer Emmanuelle and welcome the 2 Odyseine Adventurers Mathilde and Candy.
A huge thanks to all the participants and all our paddlers, as well as our partners Surfrider and Red Cross for their contribution.
Photos Xavier Perez, Amélie Churin & Watertrek
Anthony and Mathieu - 2 paddlers from the Cotentin area in France, Normandy - went down a section of the Loire River - Europe’s last remaining wild river - in June 2018, in total autonomy between Chaumont-sur-Loire and Saumur (approx. 120km), eager to enjoy the athletic challenge but also to know more about the general state of the river from an ecological point of view.
The main objectives of this expedition were:
The results show a mixture of good news and bad news.
On the positive side, only a small quantity of waste was found floating between the three counties travelled - Chaumont-sur-Loire (41), Tours (37) and Saumur (49) - despite the presence of two domestic fridges along the way.
The high water level and the strong current, both unusual for the season as monitored by the French Meteo Office could explain the little amount of rubbish found, but could also mean it had been flashed out or trapped underwater. Sadly, visible floating waste is often only the tip of the iceberg.
Analysis of the level of chemicals present upstream are of concerns: overall the level of turbidity is high which means that all aquatic life suffer from a significant reduction of food supply. At times the level of nitrate is very high - especially in Vouvray sur la Cisse - which could be explained by the flushing of fertilizers, cattle farming, and in this case discarding of domestic used water.
It took a few days to our Watertrekers to get used to navigate with 30kg of material, food and drinking water on board, but also to appreciate the magnificent beauty of this wild river, its changing landscape and diversity of flora and fauna. Night times were privileged moments for them: the wow factor and serenity of the surrounding nature.
Many encounters occurred, on water and on land, like in Amboise where a young man told them he was kayaking all the way back home to Angers, and in Bréhémont people from Malo shared their passion for the traditional barge - la gabare - telling stories of mysterious legendary river giants: the catfishes. On land, the paddle boards arose the curiosity of passers-by, and even more so in Chouzé-sur-Loire where they became a great opportunity to have a drink with new found friends.
This exciting and useful adventure has been a memorable experience for our two watertrekers, who attracted lots of curious interest from the public, and while explaining their expedition’s objectives, were able to raise awareness about the health state of our waterways. This leading to further new projects.
Some destinations are particularly well adapted to paddling, and Norway is definitely one of them. Suping along the fjords is a magical experience and being hosted by Titus from SUP Norway also plays a great role in an incredible experience.
Severine our cofounder was lucky enough to be invited to join and host an eco-expedition along the Sognefjord, three days departing from Gudvangen, in the heart of Viking land to discover the wonder of Norwegian nature. The expedition was the occasion for Watertrek to try their brand new manta trawl meant to study microplastics, designed and kindly sent over from California by our partners at Plastic Tides. The weather conditions were amazing between that May 25-28th, 2018, offering the most magical show in the form of huge waterfalls and freshwater melting all around. Fortunately they were no plastic waste to be found in those streams. Fjords were a perfect playground though to test our net without meeting too much currents or waves.
Waking up to the sound of a sheep waving his bell to your tent window is somehow surprising, almost as much as Titus serving us a typical nordic breakfast out of the blue in the most spectaclar scenary : shrimps, local caviar, nordic bread under the rising sun.
For the second consecutive year, Watertrek joined the Eau Vive event and races on May 26th and 27th, 2018 organized in Joinville-le-Pont by the SUP club Le Grand 8. Our volunteer Emmanuelle Trouslard took care of supervising the crew of paddlers who collected waste from the water, while our partners at Surfrider Paris were cleaning the foreshore by foot. The 2 structures shared a common stand on the associative village.
6 paddlers armed with gloves and bags made a round trip along the canal of Polangis and collected four bags of 50L in approximately one hour. On the ground, 22 participants gathered 3 000 cigarette butts, 458 food packagings, 157 beer tops as well as usual straws and lollipop sticks.
The collected volume of waste remained by the booth, raising the attention of local hikers who could hence realise the actual amount of trash that was literring their town.
For the second time this year, Watertrek, represented by its cofounder Séverine, joined the MED Scientific Expedition sailing boat, chartered by Bruno Dumontet in order to join a campaign on the study of microplastics in the Mediterranean. After the Genes region in 2016, it is between Pescara and Venice that Séverine has joined the Ainez, the vessel of captain Giulio Cesare Giua. Just like last year, the objective is to sample sea water in order to extract some plastics and microplastics from them. The amount of sample to collect and the sample zones are defined upstream by the scientific team made up of Tosca Ballerini (PhD Marine Biologie), Marion Philippon Jéremy Mansui (PhD Oceanographie) and Laura Frère (PhD Marine Biologie). Our role is to deploy the manta in the water, sail for 30 minutes, then bring the collector out of the water and extract its content. First of all, the plant elements are withdrawn (aquatic plants, pine needles, leaves), the gelatinous organisms like jellyfish are withdrawn from the sample, leaving an assortment of plankton, larves and…microplastics. This assortment is then kept in 70% ethanol while waiting to be analysed by Marion Philippa at the University of South Brittany, under the supervision of Stéphane Bruzard. This analysis will allow them to estimate the amount of plastic present in the samples.
New this year is the addition of a more sensitive bacterial procedure to the samples, the objective being to study the “plastisphere”, that is to say the communities of micro-organisms which colonise plastic. This research has been carried out in partnership with the biologists Linda Amaral-Settler and Erik Zettler (NIOZ - Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research), the inventors of the term “plastisphere”. Plastic is rot-proof, therefore it provides an ideal environment for viruses and bacteria who need stability to develop. This means, moreover, that they can make it the perfect place for an epidemic, putting again into question the sanitary role of marine areas which up until now enabled quarantine. What will happen if the sea can no longer protect certain proliferations, but on the contrary support them by the bias of the plastic that it welcomes? Trying to find an answer to this question, this new procedure is going to be put into place on board. The protocol requires us to be vigilant and not leave traces of our DNA on the samples. A sufficiently big piece of plastic is chosen from the sample, it is then cut into 3 isolated pieces: the first piece will be used to observe micro-organisms under a scanning electron microscope, the second to identify bacterial communities by extracting their DNA, and the third for a chemical analysis in order to confirm the nature of the plastic piece. The results will be known in a few months.
To be on board MED Expedition means sailing with the greatest captain. Gastronomic exploration of Italian dishes, unexpected and confidential anchorage, all types of adventures: Giulio has looked after us again this year. Despite the fact that sailing in the Venetian lagoon is particularly tricky with a sailing boat, Giulio enabled us to discover unbelievable locations, like the Isle of Pelestrina, an authentic oasis in the heart of the lagoon which allowed us to appreciate an exceptional evening, when a guy from the village, accompanied by his accordionist and a sublime opera singer, offered the locals an a cappella concert in the village. The inhabitants of the island have brought their chairs to place themselves in front of the church and accompany their tenor in his repertoire of traditional venetian songs. This is Giulio: virtuous, generous, real, surprising. As our love for sailing is nothing, but equal to our love of the sea, it’s for that reason that it’s in our hearts to protect it.
