2021
Creation of the Aquatic Litter Department, the X-Press Pearl disaster and a new chair of the Strategy Committee
2021 was marked by the creation of a department devoted to aquatic litter: the “Aquatic Litter Monitoring and Studies Department”. In the same year, this new department was structured and the team reinforced to include three permanent staff working on aquatic litter.
The main missions of the Aquatic Litter Department consist in providing scientific and technical support for the implementation of litter reduction actions in aquatic environments and enhancing our understanding of their fates and impacts and well as potential solutions.
On 17 June, after a blaze had been raging for several days, the X-Press Pearl container ship sank off the Port of Colombo (Sri Lanka). The vessel was carrying 1,486 containers whose cargo included chemicals and plastic pellets and, according to the shipowner, around 350 tonnes of oil products. Two engineers from Cedre were sent to Colombo on Tuesday 15 June and immediately joined a mission coordinated by the United Nations, until 29 June, to provide technical advice to the Sri Lankan authorities on possible response actions and to define a monitoring programme to assess the medium- and long-term environmental impacts.
2021 also saw the election of Clément Lavigne as chair of our Strategy Committee.