Sétoise Company Cleaner Naval Solutions Begins Maritime Depollution and Water Collection Service in Port of Sète

“On the night of Wednesday August 2 to Thursday August 3, we sucked up 200 liters of hydrocarbons, which had spilled into the port of Sète. The intervention lasted nearly four hours” explains Tom Léonardon, president of Cleaner Naval Solutions. Last March, three people from Sète and a man from Cherbourg joined forces to set up this maritime depollution and dirty water collection company. Commissioned by the port of Sète – Sud de France following a call for tenders, Cleaner Naval Solutions has just started its service in the port on August 1st, and will operate for a period of 4 months, until November 30, 2023.

100% electric boats

For Tom Léonardon, real estate agent in Sète and deeply in love with his city, the idea was above all to “have a finger in the pie”in order to guarantee the cleanliness of the waters of the port and to contribute, on a larger scale, to the preservation of the marine ecosystem.

In order to carry out its missions, Cleaner Naval Solutions has partnered with the company Efinor, which develops 100% electric boats. Two boats, integrating a patented depollution technology called “double flow” travel up and down the port of Sète, 7 days a week. In concrete terms, a recovery system, integrated into each of the boats, allows the collection of all types of floating waste, solid or liquid, including hydrocarbons and microplastics.

At the front of the ship, a hatch opens and sucks up the waste thanks to a flow, itself created by a turbine. A filter then stops all solid waste, which is collected and then dumped into a bin on deck. Polluted water, including gray water (dishwashing and shower), black water (WC) and bilge water, passes through a separator, to be then stored. The clear waters are discharged into the sea.

Part of the waste is then recovered by the Elise association, which is responsible for recycling it, in order to give it a second life in the form of clothing or bottles, for example.

Intervention guaranteed within one hour

“Beyond our daily actions, we can be mobilized 24 hours a day for emergency interventions. Sète residents can contact the harbor master’s office, and thanks to an alert system, we intervene within the hour, until that the pollution is stopped.” indicates the president of Cleaner Naval Solutions. “Making people aware of contacting the harbor master’s office is also our mission. We started on August 1, and the people of Sète are already thanking us for our interventions, which considerably reduce the nauseating odors caused by port pollution.”

Another major consequence of port pollution… the risk of dispersion of hydrocarbons in the Etang de Thau. A considerable threat to marine fauna and flora, as well as to bathers, which the company is working to contain.