KP INNOSERV Supports the UPSTREAM-Funded RIVEROOT Pilot to Stop River Plastic at the Source in Machairas
Stopping river plastic at its source, in the headwaters of Cyprus.
KP INNOSERV is pleased to announce RIVEROOT – Headwaters Plastic Retention Observatory & Smart Prevention Pilot, a project selected for funding under UPSTREAM Open Call 1 (Collection and Valorisation), part of the EU Horizon Europe Mission Ocean. The pilot is led by the Machairas Community Complex, a cluster of seven rural communities in the Nicosia District, with KP INNOSERV acting as technical consultant.
The Machairas hills are the headwaters of the Gialias and Alikos rivers. For most of the year the streams are dry and litter settles in the riverbeds; the first winter rains then carry it downstream towards the Mediterranean. Until now, these upstream reaches have been a blind spot in plastic monitoring.
RIVEROOT is closing that gap. Five litter hotspots have been mapped along a 16 km river corridor, and nine litter audits on the same 50 m stretches track what accumulates over three months. A removable 20 m floating trap has been installed at the Lythrodontas weir, three smart bins with QR reporting now stand at the busiest picnic and rest spots, and around 100 students have visited the river to learn how litter travels from the hills to the sea. Captured plastics will be sorted for recycling, and the results will feed an open dataset and a Practical Replication Guide for rural regions across Europe.
As technical consultant, KP INNOSERV specified and sourced the litter trap, and supports the monitoring methodology, capacity building and communication of the pilot.
RIVEROOT has indirectly received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation action programme, via the UPSTREAM OC1 Collection and Valorisation open call issued and executed under the UPSTREAM project (Grant Agreement no. 101112877).
