The Bioplastic Lab

🌊🔬 Last week, we took part in the Erasmus MARIS teacher training programme on microplastics, a European initiative that combines citizen science, marine education, and environmental monitoring. Erasmus MARIS aims to engage schools and teachers in harmonised microplastic monitoring through scientific protocols and hands-on learning, helping build a collaborative network for environmental awareness and research.

The training brought together teachers for theoretical and practical sessions on microplastic sampling, laboratory analysis, and scientific data management, providing tools to bring environmental science into the classroom and strengthen ocean literacy.

It was great to see such enthusiasm and engagement throughout the sessions — a very successful training experience! 🌍♻️

🌱🔬 Earlier this spring, we harvested the fruits from Andrea's experimental crops.

Her research deals with microplastics in crops. 

We are now moving into the analytical phase in the laboratory. 🧪

Last Monday, we had the pleasure of welcoming students from CY Cergy Paris Université (France) to our facilities. 🎓🌍

During their visit, we presented some of our ongoing research projects, including ViSS and Agrimicro, while fostering international collaboration and student exchange opportunities.

Encounters like these help build connections, share knowledge, and inspire future scientific cooperation. 🤝🔬

Last week, we held a meeting for the in Alcoy, Spain.

Developing circular systems that transform waste into valuable resources is key to conserving our planet’s natural resources. In this project, we work on using food waste as part of the feedstock to produce bioplastics, contributing to more sustainable material solutions.

A special thank you to AITEX for organizing the meeting, for the warm welcome, and for showing us their facilities.

We are happy to keep advancing! ♻️🔬

Last Saturday, February 21st, we carried out a citizen science beach clean-up as part of the at Agua Amarga beach in Alicante 🌊☀️♻️

In 100 meters of shoreline, we collected a total of 25,65 kg of waste. The most common items found were:

🔹 Plastic fragments < 2.5 cm
🔹 Plastic fragments > 2.5 cm
🔹 Construction debris
🔹 Cotton bud sticks

This activity aimed to raise awareness about plastic pollution and its impact on our coastal ecosystems. Plastic waste doesn’t just disappear — it breaks down into smaller pieces, persists in the environment, and can severely affect marine wildlife through ingestion, entanglement, and habitat disruption.

Citizen science actions like this help generate data while fostering environmental responsibility. Together, small actions can make a big difference 🌍

A huge thank you to all the volunteers who made this clean-up possible — your time, energy, and commitment truly make a difference for our oceans 🌊💙

As part of the AGRIMICRO project, we are currently extracting microplastics from agricultural soil samples — the previous step before counting and identifying the plastic types present in each sample 🧑‍🔬🔬