Malta divers haul half-tonne of rubbish off Ċirkewwa seabed in record clean-up

Half-tonne of ghost nets, tyres and bottles hauled off Ċirkewwa seabed in dawn clean-up
By Hot Malta staff | Tuesday 07:15

The first rays of sun were still glinting on the ferry wake to Gozo when the last crate of rubbish broke the surface at Ċirkewwa on Sunday morning. Inside the mesh: shredded trawler nets, a truck tyre, sun-bleached Coca-Cola bottles from the 1990s, a battered “Twistees” tin and a single, barnacle-encrusted statue of the Madonna that someone had once dropped in the sea for luck. In total, 480 kg of debris were lifted from barely 200 m of seabed—roughly the weight of a fully-grown bluefin tuna, the very species whose spawning grounds the rubbish was threatening.

The dive, coordinated by local NGO Żibel and supported by Transport Malta, the Armed Forces and the ferry company Gozo Channel, is the largest single clean-up ever recorded at the gateway to the sister island. It is also a wake-up call for a stretch of coast that Maltese divers regard as their underwater living room.

“Ċirkewwa is where most of us did our first open-water dive,” explains Kirsty Sant, a 27-year-old instructor from St Paul’s Bay who volunteered her Sunday. “It’s our training pool, our Saturday barbecue spot, the place you surface after a night dive and see the Comino lights flick on. Finding a gill net wrapped around the statue of the Madonna down there felt like finding plastic in your nanna’s soup.”

Local legend claims that statues of the Madonna—placed by fishermen in the 1970s—protect divers. Over the decades the concrete plinth has become an unofficial pilgrimage site where baptisms are celebrated with Champagne sprays and newly-weds pose in full wedding gear, weights hidden under the gown. Seeing the shrine tangled in synthetic rope struck a nerve that no statistic about “marine litter” ever could.

The numbers, however, are impossible to ignore. Malta’s Environmental Resources Authority estimates that 33 tonnes of plastic enter the sea round the islands every year—equal to one garbage truck reversing into the waves every 48 hours. Much of it washes into the north-westerly current that funnels floating trash straight into the channel between Malta and Gozo, where strong down-welling then drags it to the sandy bottom at 18-24 m. Once snagged on posidonia meadows or rocky ledges, the debris becomes a death trap for groupers, lobsters and the occasional loggerhead turtle.

Sunday’s operation used a 20-tonne crane mounted on the Gozo Channel barge MV Malita, normally reserved for loading trucks. Divers clipped lifting bags to the heaviest items, guiding them up in a ballet of bubbles and hand signals while ferry passengers lined the rails, filming on phones. Children waved at the surface-supplied “hat” diver who emerged cradling the Madonna like a salvaged relic. By 09:30 the crew had also retrieved 42 glass bottles, 17 kg of monofilament nets, two scooter tyres and a crate of Cisk bottles so old they still carried the 1970s red-and-gold label.

For Mellieħa mayor Darren Abela, who rolled up his sleeves to haul crates, the clean-up is personal. “My grandfather built the first boathouses here in the 1960s. They used to paint the rocks with sump oil to keep the salt off. We’ve come a long way, but the sea is giving back what we threw at it.” Abela announced that the council will install a “reverse vending” station for fishing gear at the Ċirkewwa car park, the first of its kind on the islands, where trawlers can dump torn nets for recycling instead of midnight jettisoning.

Tourism stakeholders are watching closely. Roughly 60,000 certified dives are logged at Ċirkewwa every year, making the site the busiest shore-entry point in the central Mediterranean. After COVID-19 wiped out two summer seasons, operators are banking on a 2024 rebound. “No one books a holiday to dive through crisp packets,” warns Mark Pace, who runs Dive Systems Malta. “Visibility here has dropped from 35 m in the 1980s to 15 m on a good day. If we don’t act, we’ll be the generation that turned the crystal sea into soup.”

Żibel co-founder Andrew Schembri says the NGO will return in September with side-scan sonar to map remaining hotspots. “We can’t crane our way out of this every month,” he admits. “The real haul needs to come from changing what we bring to the sea—single-use plastic, cheap flip-flops, disposable BBQ trays.” His volunteers are already lobbying supermarkets to ditch plastic packaging on picnic items sold in the north, and a petition to extend the beverage-container refund scheme to fishing gear has gathered 8,000 signatures.

Back on the quay, the salvaged Madonna was rinsed with fresh water and placed in a crate lined with beach towels. Someone taped a fresh bouquet of artificial white lilies to her outstretched hands. By evening she was back on her plinth, 12 m under the surface, arms wide open to a cleaner blue. Divers descending at dusk reported 20 m visibility—proof, perhaps, that even a small island can tilt the scales when community, commerce and conscience pull in the same direction.