It spun towards me, strange and displaced. My gloved hand grasped at the mystery dancer, pirouetting in the current, before a reluctant capture. A tampon. Lovely. It went in my string bag with the other goodies I’d collected in the last thirty minutes. The dancing tampon was one of many lurking six metres underwater near Barceloneta Beach, one of Barcelona’s most popular relaxation spots. Toilet tissues, sanitary pads, chewing gum, even a butter lid taunted me as I flippered my way across the seabed, scooping up as much litter as possible.
Life below water is unseen by the majority of the population. It’s a world not made for us, and yet there we are – the stains of humanity entwined with untouched corals. You flush a wipe down the toilet and, for you, it’s out of sight and out of mind. For ocean communities, it strangles, chokes, destroys. There comes a responsibility to protect what others can’t see, when proportionally so few are certified to enter these precious landscapes.
I have been a certified, albeit expired, scuba diver since 2016. Towards the start of my study abroad journey, I reactivated the certification in the fresh Mediterranean with the intention of seeking exotic fish and octopi. The reality of scuba diving near Barcelona, however, was much grimmer. The University of Barcelona estimates that seven tonnes of plastic waste end up along the coastline of Barcelona every year. The rivers, exponential tourist numbers, and overflowing sewers contribute to this value, making it increasingly harder for Catalonia to achieve the UN’s sustainability goals. Despite Barcelona City Council providing waste-reduction information via their website, the numbers continue to grow, as do the people – the council reported a 2.9% increase in visitors from 2024-2025 alone. Collecting used sanitary products from Barcelona’s sea floor wasn’t originally my intention, yet it felt…not just right, but necessary, as a visitor to the infamously overvisited region.
Clean water underpins all 17 of the UN’s sustainability goals. Without it, we have nothing. SIWI provides an invaluable resource in understanding water’s role in a sustainable future, linking each sustainability goal to their common liquid roots. At home in the UK, our water faces dangerous and, frankly, disgusting threats of irresponsible sewage overflows, as recently highlighted by Channel 4’s powerful documentary Dirty Business. I cannot, unfortunately, use my PADI certification to help. But in Barcelona? I can make a difference.
There were nine of us making the cleaning dive, trudging towards the already busy beach as the 9am sunshine cooked us in our wetsuits. It’s needless to say how disgusting the seabed of Barcelona is, given the numbers. Resurfacing felt jarring. Children splashed in the shallows and swimmers caught the sun on their bare backs – do they know what’s under their feet? I felt pride, raw and unfiltered, to have left one corner of Barceloneta significantly cleaner. For at least today, the children would play with seaweed and shells, not floating sanitary products. At least today.
Same time next week.
