Clearing the corporate trash from the Ambracian Gulf

It's just before 8 a.m. and the seaside town of Amfilochia, in Aetolia-Acarnania in northwestern Greece, is coming to life. As shopkeepers pull up their shutters and parents walk their kids to school, the Healthy Seas team is getting ready for a major operation to restore the marine ecosystem in the area. Some are in cars and others are on the three boats belonging to the international environmental organization, as they head out to Menidi Beach, some 25 kilometers away. Their task is to tackle what is a graveyard of sealife: the remains of an abandoned fish farm, consisting mainly of plastic, styrofoam, ropes and nets, which cause untold pollution and damage the marine ecosystem.

"We cleaned up a fish farm just a few months ago that had been out of operation for some 20 years, near Nafpaktos," says Healthy Seas Director Veronika Mikos, as the diving boat, the Mako, cuts...