The Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN) has launched one of the key actions of the CIRCULAROCEAN project: the mapping of hotspots and marine litter accumulation zones. This activity will enable the integrated, regional-scale identification of areas in the Eastern Central Atlantic where ocean currents promote the accumulation of floating debris.
CIRCULAROCEAN is an INTERREG MAC Territorial Cooperation project coordinated by the Deputy Ministry for Ecological Transition, Climate Change and Energy of the Government of the Canary Islands, with the participation of 15 additional partners from the Azores, the Canary Islands, Madeira, Cape Verde, Ghana, and São Tomé and Príncipe. The main objective of the project is to foster transnational collaboration to implement sustainable practices and drive the transition towards a circular economy applied to marine litter. To achieve this, it combines environmental monitoring, technological innovation, pilot actions, circular business models, and awareness-raising activities to reduce the impact of waste on the ocean and reintegrate it as a resource within productive systems.
PLOCAN leads an activity focused on integrating multiple data sources—oceanographic observations, drifting buoys, coastal clean-ups, and numerical modelling—to identify how marine litter is transported and where it tends to accumulate within the Macaronesian region. The expected outcome is a series of georeferenced risk maps indicating the areas where debris most frequently concentrates depending on the season, current regimes, or proximity to ports and urban areas.
Studying ocean currents and accumulation zones is essential to understanding the movement of floating debris across the ocean. Identifying these patterns helps anticipate impacts on particularly vulnerable coastal areas and optimise clean-up and monitoring efforts. Likewise, understanding the origin and behaviour of marine debris facilitates its management and supports its integration into circular economy schemes through valorisation processes. Altogether, the analysis of marine litter transport and drift is a strategic tool that supports decision-making, strengthens environmental protection, and advances more sustainable and effective management of coastal ecosystems in the Macaronesian region.
CIRCULAROCEAN was approved under the first call of the INTERREG VI-D MAC Territorial Cooperation Programme (Madeira–Azores–Canary Islands) 2021–2027 and is co-financed at 85% by ERDF funds. The initiative falls under Priority 2 “MAC Verde” and Specific Objective 2.6, “Promoting the transition to a circular, resource-efficient economy”, of the INTERREG MAC 2021–2027 Programme.
