Pollution :
how this commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales region keeps out waste
The municipality of Elne, in the Pyrénées-Orientales region, is not insensitive to the scourge of waste and is committed to the environment.
Elne town council has decided to take an active part in reducing waste at sea by installing a collection system patented by the Clean-up Rivers company. “After reading the article in L’Indépendant, I thought it could be a relevant project for several reasons. Firstly, it’s a small local entrepreneur who’s getting involved, it represents a small investment, and it’s in line with what we’re trying to do in the commune.“says Annie Pezin, deputy mayor of Elne, in charge of ecological transition.
Inexpensive on a community scale…
A small investment for the commune, but a big one for the environment. A net system installed in the Elne canal, just outside the village, is designed to recover waste before it ends up in the sea, but not only that.The three-metre-wide net has been placed where we know the waste is likely to go further. The aim is to stop it, but we’d also like to see what’s being recovered so we can characterize it and perhaps mediate to reduce the quantity upstream.” The only problem of late has been the lack of water in the canal. “We’ve only had a short collection season, so the experiment has come to a bit of a standstill.“
A little feedback that nonetheless enthused the elected representative, “It’s a small, inexpensive gesture on the scale of a commune, but a very important one. It’s really a small investment, less expensive than a garbage can or a bench in the town.” And the deputy doesn’t intend to stop there: “We’re thinking of tagging the entrances to the town’s gullies with ‘the sea begins here’ signs. People need to get out of the habit of throwing away their cigarette butts. We’ve also talked about cleaning up the riverbanks. It needs to be done, because there are lots of Styrofoam trays and bits of fertilizer bags, but I don’t know how to tackle it..”
As a reminder, this waste capture unit developed by Clean-up Rivers had been validated by Philippe Kerhervé, a teacher-researcher at UPVD (University of Perpignan-Via domitia), who is also behind the Redplast66 scientific study. Other communes (Bages, Montescot, Théza and Coreilla-del-Vercol) have also rallied to the cause, since in 2022, on the initiative of the Bassin-versant Réart and with the help of the Sud Roussillon communauté de communes, 26 waste traps of the same kind were installed all along the agouille de la Mar.
proposed by Jean
