The diving and snorkeling company DIVE.IS has launched a project to clean up the coastline of Iceland. Fríða Líf, divemaster working with DIVE.IS, started the project with a small group of divers and non-divers who, with the support of the whole company, went to Garður on the national day of plocking, 15th of April.

Being the main dive site visited by the company on a daily basis, Silfra was selected to be cleaned up next. Divers were divided into groups to make sure every part of the site was covered. The operation also helped a lot with the collection of data and it was interesting to see where the most trash was collected.

While the divers covered Silfra, other staff, park rangers and volunteers were busy picking up garbage on the land surrounding Silfra to make sure that it won‘t make it out to Silfra, Þingvellir lake and then the ocean.

Park rangers regularly clean up the park, but still quite a lot of litter was found. The biggest group was plastic once again, with 453 pieces total. It was expected that lost scuba and snorkel gear would be prominent and it was indeed the second biggest plastic group with 82 pieces were found. 53 cigarette filters were collected as well and, for those who don’t know, they are made of plastic.
The second biggest group was quite a surprise: a total of 169 pieces of glass and ceramics, mostly small fragments that measured less than 5 cm.
Probably the weirdest thing we found was a great number of coins from many different countries. The coins are in Silfra because a lot of foreigners mistake Silfra for Peningjagjá (literally money fissure), a close-by rift that people have used as a wishing well for years.
One earring was also found.

„The day went amazingly. We are so grateful for the help of the rangers and all the volunteers“, says Fríða Líf on behalf of DIVE.IS. When the clean up was over, DIVE.IS was happy to invite everyone who joined the clean-up to a barbecue on the parking lot by Silfra, with reusable plates of course.

This is an ongoing project and upcoming clean-ups will be advertised on the company social media profiles:

• DIVE.IS Facebook
• DIVE.IS Instagram