May the 31st, 2025 – An innovative concept using a floating drone and a 5G network is working to remove plastic and other kinds of waste from the Adriatic.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, a plastic bottle takes 450 years to decompose in the sea, and plastic and microplastics make up between 60% and 80% of the waste found in European seas, including the Adriatic. In fact, the Adriatic Sea has the additional problem of being shallow and partially enclosed, meaning that most of the waste that ends up in Croatian waters (some figures say as much as 90%) arrives on currents and winds from Croatia’s southern neighbours, primarily from Albania, Greece and Montenegro.
The large ship traffic in the Adriatic and Ionian seas also doesn’t go in Croatia’s favour, nor is the wastewater that is not treated in a quality manner in this part of the Adriatic. Microplastics, which are invisible to the eye, are particularly dangerous. They primarily each the sea through wastewater and thus enter the tissues of fish and other marine animals, affecting their development, the entire fishing industry, and tourism. In addition to the sea, microplastics are everywhere around us: in the soil, in our food, and even in the water we drink…. Plastic that ends up in ecosystems mostly comes from improper waste disposal, and its slow decomposition further exacerbates the problem.
In order to raise awareness of the waste problem in the Croatian Adriatic, especially among young people, and to encourage positive changes, Telemach is stepping up. Telemach is working with with the Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) Innovamare Association, which is recognised as one of the key European initiatives for the restoration of water and the preservation of biodiversity. It is also working with the Ruđer Bošković Institute, with which it launched the socially responsible project “Happy Sea/Sretno More”, which aims to educate young people on environmental issues and cleaning up the seabed using the latest 5G technology.
Telemach is the first telecom operator on the Croatian market to use 5G technology for these purposes. In doing so, it will use a floating drone and the 5G network to clean the Adriatic. The innovative autonomous vessel used is named after the Croatian inventor Faust Vrancic (Faust V). Faust V recently had its premiere in underwater cleaning, or support for divers and environmental teams, during a cleaning operation on Kolovare beach in Zadar, from where an entire tonne of waste was removed.
The floating drone and the 5G network is a piece of innovation of the DIH Innovamare Association. Faust V is vessel with multiple purposes, it can be used for the monitoring of tourist traffic and for monitoring sea quality. The vessel is equipped with a drone, can go to a depth of up to 50 metres and detect objects with the help of sensors and a sophisticated surveillance system. Telemach’s state-of-the-art 5G network, recently declared the best quality network in Croatia, is used for communication with the vessel. It controls the vessel and the floating drone in the Adriatic, it also utilises real-time video transmission.
