• The Marseille start-up Green City Organization has installed in the Old Port, at the nautical company level, a patented system presented as a world first.

  • Nets, with a capacity of 10 cubic meters, will be able to collect plastics, packaging and micro-waste at the outlet of rainwater outlets, before they reach the sea.

  • Connected, the system sends information on waste filling and water quality.

    And above all, it avoids creating a plug: when it is full, it then releases the flow of water.

The crane is slightly expected this Tuesday in front of the Société nautique de Marseille, and with it the device developed by the Marseille start-up Green City Organization, a world first according to it. On arrival, the divers get into the water, they will have to fix the system, called D-Rain, at the exit of the storm water outlet. No small task: the whole weighs more than a ton. Composed of large double mesh nets, it is capable of retaining waste the size of a cigarette butt. "We are tackling one of the largest outlets in France, we cannot find a more beautiful place than the Old Port as a commercial showcase", rejoices Isabelle Gerente, founding president of Green City Organization.

“We are all professional divers,” she continues.

Pollution at sea is only the tip of the iceberg.

Where it is necessary to intervene, it is at the exit of the networks, there where the waste concentrates before it is scattered at sea. ”Nets already equip some outlets on the southern coast of the city, which counts 200 outlets, 180 of which are submarines, but nothing comparable with this one, resulting from a project co-financed to the tune of 70,000 euros by the Rhône Méditerranée Corse Water Agency and Total Energies Développement Régional.

Water quality measurements

"The innovation is in the collar," explains Isabelle Gerente. The system for fixing the net in the outlet makes it possible to never load the network. In other words, it will not be able to behave like a plug in the event of strong rain episodes, an automatic valve releases the flow of water. It is also connected and can send the information that it is full to SERAMM, the city's sanitation service, without there being any need to regularly check its condition. Finally, the system can also provide information on the quality of the water.

"The most complicated thing is to have had to make low-tech something simple and which can be duplicated abroad", indicates Thierry Dubourdieu, technical director of Green City Organization.

The start-up aims to develop in countries around the Mediterranean.

Contacts have already been made with Morocco and Tunisia.

"In the new version, the intervention of a diver will no longer be useful," he continues.

The operations to detach the device, the time to collect the waste, can thus be done on the surface.

Marketing from 5,000 euros

There remains the question of cost, which depends above all on the size of the outlet. Green City Organization, which refuses to communicate further on it, evokes a price "from 5000 euros". In Marseille, the device will be tested for eighteen months. How quickly will the nets, with a capacity of 10 cubic meters, fill up? What types of waste will we find there? What impact on water quality measurements? So many elements that will feed the experimentation of the device on this body of water, which brings together 500 boats from the Old Port.

“The metropolis is watching this experience very closely,” assures Didier Réault, vice-president of the metropolis responsible for the sea and the coast.

"It's expensive, because there is the amortization of innovation on this single copy, but if we consider the device interesting for the Old Port, we will not be on the same scale."

From there to imagine the ten outlets of the harbor soon to be equipped?

"We can reasonably see within two years how to equip oneself", answers the elected official, for whom "it would be a real step forward".

Planet

Marseille: "Ecocide" at sea after torrents of waste washed away by the rain

Planet

Marseille: One month after the bad weather, "there are still all the shitty little things in the sea, the packaging, the plastics"

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