The project was presented this morning at the Hotel NH Collection Coruña Finisterre and was attended by the Conselleira de Medio Ambiente y Ordenación del territorio, Beatriz Mato Otero, Ana Callol, Director Corporativa de Relaciones Institucionales y Comunicación de Coca-Cola European Partners Iberia and Ana Gascón, Director of Corporate Responsibility of Coca-Cola Iberia

Coca-Cola has presented in A Coruña "Circular Seas", its most ambitious project to date of cleaning the coast and seabed... this plan includes the recovery of natural spaces, prevention with public awareness and awareness campaigns, and the generation of scientific studies and circular economy.

Circular Seas is born with the ambition to go beyond a massive collection of packaging, it is a campaign that seeks to raise public awareness and generate data and studies on circular economy that can contribute to the development of new initiatives in the future.

The project is supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, through the General Secretariat for Fisheries, the Chelonia Association, the Ecomar Foundation and the Zero Leases. It also includes civil and citizen collaboration through more than 100 public and private bodies between municipalities, NGOs, universities and associations.

Ana Callow, corporate director of institutional relations and communication at Coca- Cola European Partners Iberia, said: "We want Circular Seas to be an integral and circular project. This is not a timely action to collect waste on the coast and the seabed, but also to raise public awareness of the need to properly recycle and manage waste by all... Circular Seas, in addition, responds to the external dimension of our commitment to packaging within the sustainability strategy we advance and, in particular, to the goal of collecting 100% of them so that they do not end up as waste, especially in the oceans..." and noted Ana Gascón, director of corporate responsibility of Coca-Cola Iberia: "is a partnership project involving all the actors involved in environmental sustainability of the environments."

The Mares Circular project, which started in late May, plans to collaborate in the conservation of 100% of the marine reserves in Spain. It will also carry out these activities in a natural environment in Portugal.In addition, waste collection campaigns will be conducted on 80 beaches, which means intervention on more than 270 kilometres of coastline. To reach beaches that are difficult to access or are not in the city's cleaning plan, there will be the collaboration of sports clubs of nautical activities. In addition, more than 50 fishing vessels, distributed in 12 ports in Spain and Portugal, will be working with the help of the fishing vessels, which will carry the waste they collect during their fishing work to land and deposit it in containers that are enabled to do so. This cleaning of the seabed will also be carried out in areas of influence of the marine reserves in collaboration with local diving clubs. It is therefore planned to collect more than 250 tonnes of waste, of which 25 tonnes are estimated to be PET plastic. This amount of PET will be reintegrated into the value chain of Coca- Cola in Spain, with the aim of drawing a road map to the circular economy.