The Radar on Raia project is using our buoys to validate the surface currents field measured by the High Frequency Radars installed along the Galician coast and northern Portugal. For three days, they will simulate a spill and will use our GPS buoys to study the drifting of the spill due to wind and currents. Regarding its location, they are developing hydrodynamic models of transport of litter in the sea to predict areas of accumulation as well as assessing the importance of land and maritime litter sources and its formation. With this information, they propose different future scenarios for reducing marine litter.

Marine Instruments leads this project in collaboration with other companies and renowned research centers: AZTI, New Castle University, MARIDIS, ZEPHIR, SINEF, Universidad del País Vasco y Echebastar. The project aims to combine industrial knowledge and technological experience to develop innovative solutions that improve the sustainability of the tuna sector. The objective of the project is to reduce the carbon footprint by 20% by implementing different technologies on board. The project started in February 2020 and will last for approximately 3 years.

Marine Instruments collaborates in this project of  FAD removal with other companies in the sector, The Pacific Community (SPC) and The Nature Conservancy to reduce its environmental impact.

Marine Instruments will facilitate the historical positions of the buoys to identify critical points and prevent FADs from beaching. The recycling possibilities of these FADs in nearby ports will also be analyzed.

Marine Instruments has collaborated on The Ocean Cleanup project since 2018. The project aims to collect plastic waste from the oceans. In order to achieve this objective, Ocean Cleanup has developed a waste collection system based on floating barriers of between one and two kilometers that, taking advantage of the marine currents, moves and remove surface plastics around them. Marine Instruments buoys are an active part of the program as they locate these floating barriers to track them. In addition, the buoy also provides information on the total mass of the plastic waste.

Marine Instruments collaborated on this project with NOAA and Friend of the Sea environmental association. One of our buoys, the MSi, has recently been used in a project in Hawaii to locate and dispose of a large mass of marine litter. Marine litter, consisting mainly of abandoned fishing gear, marine animals entangled and boat propellers, breaks coral reefs and ends up in areas that are difficult to access or make collection difficult. Because fishing nets are now primarily made of plastic and other materials that take hundreds of years to degrade, they can travel in the sea for decades and thousands of miles, causing a potential danger to marine resources. In this case, the MSi buoy was placed in the mass of marine litter from a helicopter and, once placed, transmitted its GPS position so that the vessel could track it and collect it.

Marine Instruments has been collaborating with NOAA in the U.S. since 2017. The project uses the MSi buoy to tag the carcasses of whales that are located at sea to assist with towing them to shore for a necropsy. The project started in Florida and tags have been distributed and used in many other coastal U.S. states.

Marine Instruments has been collaborating since 2018 on a project to prevent shark attacks in Australia and Reunion Island, Shark Smart. In this case, the MLi-S buoy sends an alert every time a shark bites the hook, allowing scientists to tag the shark and monitor it to avoid approaching the swim area. Since the installation of these systems, there have been no shark attacks in the area and the Australian government plans to install more systems in other coastal areas.

Marine Instruments created the Solar Regatta in 2015, a competition to support the technological innovation and creativity in students as well as promoting the use of solar energy as a sustainable alternative. The participating schools and technology geeks compete to design a radio controlled electric vehicle powered solely by solar energy. The competition takes place every year in June on the Ribera beach in Baiona (Pontevedra) and includes two categories: educational centers and open.

In 2020 Marine Instruments started the Marine Ecolife project, which consists of a series of actions and initiatives that aim to reduce our environmental impact internally and externally, as well as supporting initiatives and projects for plastic removal in the ocean. In-house, we are carrying out different  recycling initiatives to minimize the environmental impact of our packaging.

These inicitatives include:

• Use of recycled boxes
• Packaging reduction
• Cardboard reduction
• Redesign of inside packaging

Outside the company, we are participating in different projects that we will soon inform you about.

(1) Photo by Jeff Muir, NOAA Fisheries (2) Photo by Lucy Martin, ICS Seychelles (3) Photo by The Ocean Cleanup (4) Nathan Eagle, Civilbeat.org (5) MSi buoy attached to the floating carcass of a humpback whale off Florida/Georgia in 2018. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, NOAA Permit #18786. (6) Photo by Brad Leue/Barcroft, The Guardian.