The Save Sea Initiative program continues to evolve through various highly productive meetings aimed at identifying and supporting innovative projects that propose sustainable and innovative models in the fight against plastic pollution in maritime spaces. This initiative aims to raise awareness and encourage collective ecological mobilization through innovation against maritime pollution in Algeria.

On Monday, January 30, a meeting was organized in collaboration with the Blue Economy Program - Fisheries and Aquaculture under the theme "Reducing Plastic Waste in Maritime Spaces - Opportunities for the Blue Economy." This event saw the participation of numerous industry stakeholders in roundtables and debates, providing an immersive experience for our participating startups and project leaders, as well as networking opportunities with blue economy actors.

The topics covered aimed to provide a better understanding of the objectives of programs like the Save Sea Initiative and the Blue Economy Program, which were presented by the Leancubator team and Ilham Warda Tahraoui, an entrepreneurship expert in the Blue Economy Program.

Bertrand Cazalet, Deputy Project Manager of the Blue Economy Program, also gave an overview of the blue economy, highlighting the 2023 Agenda, which aims for effective management and sustainable exploitation of ocean, sea, lake, and river resources. The intervention by Mohamed Mounir Guerbi, a senior official at the Ministry of Fisheries and Halieutic Resources and a member of the national labeling commission, emphasized the involvement of actors by encouraging them to give importance to concrete initiatives in the blue economy in Algeria through incubation programs and funding for the maturation of their ideas and the launch of their potential projects contributing to Algeria's transformation.

The conference allowed participants to delve into many central issues for Algeria's development, the sustainability of resources, technological means, and current challenges of the blue economy, notably the lack of shared prosperity, maritime insecurity, and unsustainable human activities, including overfishing. This was addressed through a debate on the recycling industry in Algeria, moderated by Warda Tahraoui, an entrepreneurship expert in the Blue Economy Program, along with Besma Belbedjaoui, an environmental expert and waste management consultant, and HALLICHE Djamila, head of the research team and a lecturer and researcher in natural gas valorization at USTHB. This debate was followed by an overview of plastic recycling opportunities in Algeria presented by Amira Zouaoui, a marine plastic pollution engineer at the National Waste Agency.

This meeting succeeded in drawing attention to different important aspects of the blue economy, where these discussions must now translate into concrete actions.