4.55pm - Added video

One hundred tonnes of rubbish will be cleared from the seabed by an international team of divers in a bid to make nine Maltese beaches among the cleanest in the world.

International conservation NGO Ocean Alliance announced on Friday it would be certifying a number of swim zones on the island as ‘white flag’ swimming areas. 

The 'white flag' designation is issued by the NGO to beaches it has certified as being litter-free. It is not to be confused with 'blue flag' status, a conservation badge of honour granted by the Foundation for Environmental Education. 

Addressing a press conference in Wied iż Żurrieq, NGO chief executive Kristijan Curavić said the popular swimming zone would be the first one on the island to be certified as being completely waste free.

“Our divers will be going down and bringing up a few tonnes every day until there is no waste left. Then it will be monitored regularly to ensure it is one of the cleanest beaches in the world,” he said.

The clean-up was scheduled to begin today but was postponed until next week due to windy conditions along the island’s south western coastline.

Speaking with Times of Malta, Mr Curavić said the white flag project had first started around 10 years ago to raise awareness about the level of rubbish littering the seabed.

READ: Undersea clean-up hauls 140kg of plastic to shore

“This was a project which first started in Croatia with the removal of some 50 tonnes of waste from one site by divers. But we want this to be an international clean up, and so we are doing this all over the world now,” he said.

The other swimmer zones that will be given white flag status in Malta have not yet been identified, but Mr Curavić said the popular beach Golden Bay, as well as coastal urban areas such as Sliema and Valletta would likely feature.

Today’s press conference was also attended by Fisheries European Commissioner Karmenu Vella who said the EU has launched a water quality monitoring project and was trying to curb the proliferation of single-use plastics and micro plastics.