Over the past period, the DeFishGear partner from Slovenia – Institute for Water of the Republic of Slovenia (IWRS), organised and participated in several different events, with the aim to promote the DeFishGear activities and raise marine litter awareness.

One of those events was participation at the “Festival of Science” that took place in September 2015, related to the topic “Power of Water”, within which the IWRS lead workshops titled “Wastewater and Microplastics”.

Within this event, the general public was presented the most common marine litter found on the Slovenian Coast. Children had the opportunity to watch the plastic pellets under the stereomicroscope, plastic particles isolated from peeling creams and plastic fibers found in the sea. Along with this event, some other interesting activities were organised:

• Search of microplastics in samples of sand using a magnifying glass and tweezers; and
• Creation of collages from waste plastics.

Visitors were able to watch a short video relating to sampling of microplastics on the surface and analysis of samples that was recorded for Video guidelines in WP5. DeFishGear project was also presented and DFG leaflets disseminated.

Besides the event above, also in September 2015, IWRS, in cooperation with the Institution "TRI-NITI" organised an event called “Clean Coast 2015”. The event was divided in two parts:

• First part of the event was the beach clean-up within the world’s largest voluntary coastal clean-up action - the International coastal clean-up day organised by Ocean Conservancy. More than 132 volunteers participated in this event, and in only two hours more than 168 kg of marine litter or 14074 pieces of waste were collected. Every volunteer collected approx. 1.37 kg of waste.
• Second part of the event was focused on dissemination activities and the play for children – “Story from under the Sea”. It was an interactive storytelling with the main characters from the children’s book that was produced by IWRS. More than 30 children (age 2-10) attended this play.

In order to find more information about these events, please contact Mr. Uroš Robič  from the Institute for Water of the Republic of Slovenia via e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .