• A team of three eco-adventurers for the third edition of the Azur Mediterranean Project will swim along the coast, by kayak and then by bike to raise awareness of the protection of the water cycle.

  • Among the awareness-raising actions, waste collection is organized once a week in the stopover towns.

  • Saturday morning, the three young women stopped in Nice and, with the help of twenty volunteers, collected more than 35 kg of waste, on the coast and at sea, in two hours.

Saturday morning, on the beach (in the rocks) of Coco Beach, about twenty people were equipped with bags and gloves to "clean up the coast".

In addition to this “terrestrial” team, Philomène le Lay, underwater, and Solène Chevreuil, on the water, also hunted waste in this very popular place in Nice for the beauty of the landscape.

These two “eco-adventurers” left Menton last week accompanied by Anaëlle Marot and will go along the Mediterranean to Marseille by kayak and swim then by bike to Cerbères.

The purpose of this journey of the Projet Azur collective?

Raising awareness of the protection of the water cycle with collections once a week in the “stopover towns”.

"If we suffocate the sea of ​​waste, we suffocate at the same time"

“I found a hubcap and a mirror,” exclaims Viviane, a volunteer from the Nice Plogging association, present to help the three young women.

“You will soon be able to make a car,” replies Philomène, laughing.

For her part, she recovered a sneaker and socks while diving.

But what she found the most, "is the end of the evening waste such as cigarette butts and bottles of alcoholic beverages", breathes this illustrator who has already traveled the Loire by swimming and cycling.

"I had a hard time removing the beer caps stuck on the sea urchins," she says.

It was following the IPCC report but also “all these catastrophic events” that she really decided to embark on the adventure.

With these participatory science actions of this third edition of the Azur Project in the Mediterranean, it is thus raising awareness of "the overheating of water", which this summer exceeded 5 to 6°C above normal for the season.

"By being in and on the water, we also serve the scientific community to collect data," says the swimmer in the group.

Marine fauna and flora are bio-indicators, they also give us the state of the sea. We have already noted that with the warming of the Mediterranean, there is a proliferation of jellyfish but there are also species, like the barracuda which can end up in these warmer waters and become a predator for other fish”.

She adds: “We don't realize to what extent the sea is the first lung of the planet and that it takes time to regenerate it.

And if we suffocate it with all this waste, we suffocate ourselves at the same time”.

In fact, 80% of marine litter comes from activities on land, as Guillaume from the association Wings of the ocean "Mission Sud" reminded us, also present at the event and which depolluted the Côte de Sète in Nice, to then sort what has been collected and collect data.

“It takes real political will for things to change”

Anaëlle Marot, who visited Nice during the first edition of the Azur Project, makes a sad assessment: “It's getting worse and worse in terms of waste.

It's crazy since there are more and more people who collect and yet there is more and more waste.

And all that is found is what is produced, she continues.

The sea is simply a reflection of the consumer society.

It is then a cry of alarm that we make.

We don't have time anymore!

According to her, "the awareness, it is there, but it must be a real political will for things to change".

“It's great what they do, comments Yannick, a regular at the place, watching the volunteers sort the waste at the end of the collection.

We have been coming here every day for 35 years and we do like them, on our scale, to keep this place beautiful”.

His friend Stella adds: “We can't bear to see him dirty in this way.

This spot, we consider it the apple of our eye.

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In total, on the 12,000 m2 of Coco Beach, 37.4 kg of waste was collected in two hours, including 7,500 cigarette butts.

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