Consortium meeting of the Mission Ocean UPSTREAM project at Leitat

On 12th and 13th of March, Leitat hosted the first consortium meeting of the Mission ocean UPSTREAM project, co-financed by the European Union and the UK Research and Innovation.

The consortium partners presented the results achieved during the first 6 months of the project, with major achievements in:

• ​Standardisation of litter, plastics, and microplastics sampling and monitoring framework

• ​Implementation of prevention by design strategies through the development of novel biodegradable plastics for cosmetics and food packeging purposes

• ​Technologies for microplastics removal from wastewater treatment plant sludge and effluent

• Remediation technologies for collecting litter, plastics and microplastics from river surface and riverbeads

• Design and implementation of an efficient communication and dissemination strategy

THE PROJECT

UPSTREAM is an Horizon Europe Innovation Actions project aims to improve the cleanliness and water quality of the European rivers run through several major European capital cities and feed into 5 sea basins.

The project is based on the widespread deployment and demonstration of a suite of 15 advanced solutions that address the serious issues of pollution from litter, plastics, and microplastics in 7 European rivers along 5 pillars – monitoring, prevention, elimination at wastewater treatment plants, elimination from rivers, and valorisation of collected plastics. Investigations of the effectiveness and replicability of the solutions within the varying ecosystems of 5 different demonstration sites will allow for engagement with regions beyond the partnership to quickly scale up the solutions, contribute to the Mission objectives, and expand the water system knowledge base throughout Europe.