Haunted Waters

There are warm ocean waters and beautiful views on the western coasts of Greece. But the area has a problem. Many of its beaches are cluttered with metal, plastic, and fishing nets.

BEACH CLEANUP Piles of garbage await disposal or recycling after a fish-farm cleanup.

The trash comes from abandoned fish farms. These are huge pens where fish are raised for food. Fish-farming companies leave them behind when they go out of business.

Healthy Seas is an ocean conservation group. It has a nickname for these abandoned places: ghost farms. In 2021, the group started Operation Ghost Farms. It’s a fish-farm cleanup effort in Greece. So far, Operation Ghost Farms has cleared more than 310 tons, or 620,000 pounds, of debris.

VICTORY! A Healthy Seas crew finishes clearing an abandoned fish farm on the west coast of Greece.

Taking Back the Beach

Ghost farms are ugly. They’re also dangerous. Swimmers can hurt themselves on the debris. Marine animals can get tangled in the nets. Plus, trash-filled waters are bad for tourism. And they make it harder for fishermen to make a living.

LEFT BEHIND The Healthy Seas team gets a closer look at an abandoned fish farm, which has started to decay on the ocean floor.

These hazards inspired Operation Ghost Farms. According to the Healthy Seas website, the project aims to “rejuvenate × rejuvenate to make something fresh or new again (verb) local ecosystems, support affected communities, and raise awareness of the broader environmental impact.”

In 2021, residents of a Greek island called Ithaca reached out to Healthy Seas. “They told us, ‘There is a mess here,’” Samara Croci told TIME for Kids. She’s the communications manager for Healthy Seas. The Ithaca locals said a fish farm had shut down 10 years ago. The equipment was still sitting in the water. It was “spreading everywhere,” Croci says.

DEEP DIVE Healthy Seas divers remove an abandoned net from the seafloor.

Healthy Seas organized an eight-day cleanup. There were 45 participants. Among them were 20 divers. They plunged into the water to extract the old fishing equipment. The first operation collected more than 167,000 pounds of garbage. That included nearly 84,000 pounds of plastic.

TEAM EFFORT Divers retrieve a “ghost net.” These large fishing nets are left in the ocean, where they can harm marine life.

Rising Tide

Healthy Seas is still leading cleanups. First, the group finds abandoned fish farms. Then group leaders talk to local authorities. They have to get permission to do a cleanup. Healthy Seas then recruits volunteers. After the cleanup, the group clears the trash. Volunteers recycle as much of the recovered equipment as possible.

TONS OF TRASH Construction equipment is used to remove some of the heavy fish-farming debris.

Healthy Seas likes to teach young people about keeping beaches clean (see “Making a Difference”). It also raises awareness of the problem. “There is no accountability for [companies] to clean up before they leave,” Croci says. So the group hopes to create “guidelines of how the legislation × legislation a set of laws created by the government (noun) should change,” she adds. For example, the government could start by making stricter policies to reduce ghost farms. “Then,” Croci says, “we will try to push it little by little.”

Making a Difference

Healthy Seas runs Operation Ghost Farms. The group also raises awareness of other problems affecting the world’s oceans. Healthy Seas believes this awareness starts in schools. The group works to boost “ocean literacy,” to get kids involved.

Look at the photo above. It shows kids picking up trash. They’re on a beach in Spain’s Canary Islands. How can kids support clean waterways in your community?