POSITIVE WAVES

The passion for surfing and the bad state of the Mediterranean called for action. Jordi Oliva and Albert Font de Rubinat founded an NGO that today reaches out to thousands of people across Spain.

BY GABRIEL ARTHUR PHOTO FABIAN A. PONS

Some years after they finished their studies in industrial engineering, the two childhood friends and later surfing buddies started to reflect on how much plastic litter there was on the beaches around Tarragona where they lived, on the Mediterranean coast south of Barcelona. Not only bottles, bags and other trash, but also thousands of colorful plastic pellets.

Both Jordi Oliva and Albert Font de Rubinat had been designing and building surfboards with less environmental impact. Cleaning up the local beaches seemed like a natural next step.

“For us, surfing was about enjoying the connection with the sea and the environment with people around you... and the ‘surfing scene’ wasn’t reflecting that at the time,” recalls Albert Font de Rubinat.

One beach clean-up led to another. The positive response made the two friends take a bold step: In 2017, they started their own NGO called Good Karma Projects.

“It was growing organically, people connected with the cause and our storytelling from surfing. Also, people who were not surfers joined as volunteers,” says Jordi Oliva.

“The rumor spread. We were contacted by a local school, inviting us to talk about the project for their students. We brought both marine litter and surfboards, and then the kids came with us on a beach clean-up. We wanted to share our passion for the sea and surfing, and not only stay in the classrooms,” continues Jordi Oliva.

“Until today, we and our volunteers have met over 5,000 kids, and hosted over one hundred school workshops.”

Citizen scientists

Good Karma Projects now has four employees in- cluding the two founders and over 40 volunteers. They have hosted more than two hundred beach clean-ups and have collected nearly 30,000 liters of waste. But what about the colorful plastic pellets? Already in 2018, Good Karma Projects had started to document and investigate these on the beaches around Tarragona. Albert Font de Rubinat explains:

“They are also called nurdles or mermaid’s tears and are used as a raw material in the manufacture of plastic items. Due to their small size and poor practices, pellets are often ‘lost’ at all stages of the plastic production and distribution chain.”

In February 2019, the organization estimated that there could be up to 90 million pellets on one local beach only. Good Karma Projects started to engage in citizen science, collecting data with the help of volunteers. Last year, it conducted a complete scientific study in collaboration with Barcelona University (UB), to create a knowledge base around the state of plastic pellet pollution on the south coast of Catalonia and the north of the Balearic Islands.

“In May this year we were invited to Brussels to the European Parliament, together with Surfrider Foundation Europe. We presented our research, and we hope that this will make the politicians react. The Mediterranean is the most plastic polluted sea in the world, and the pellets are a huge part of the problem,” says Jordi Oliva.

The good karma keeps spreading. And one crucial part of it is still the surfing,” continues Jordi Oliva.

“There are seldom big waves where we live. Therefore, it is mandatory that we go surfing whenever the possibilities arise. We need it to charge the batteries and re-connect with why we started this.”