Chetumal, Quintana Roo — Royal Caribbean collected 997 metric tons of sargassum from the waters off Mahahual between March and September, part of a pilot program that used collection nets and drying areas to turn the seaweed into a reusable material.
The company said it ran the program together with the local organization Menos Plásticos es Fantástico, which is exploring sargassum as an alternative raw material to plastics. Alongside the seaweed harvest, the effort identified and catalogued marine species, including sargassum crabs, juvenile triggerfish, sargassum shrimp and sargassum toadfish.
Over five months, the operation deployed 3,054 collection nets and produced 560 sacks of dried sargassum ready for reuse, according to a company statement.
While the pilot focused mainly on the El Quebrado area of Mahahual, Royal Caribbean said it also backed other local sargassum management efforts in economically and touristically important parts of the resort town. Those included placing barriers near the fishermen’s docks and in the navigation channel, carried out with local partners.
The company is now launching a second phase of the program that will run through November. It will add a vessel dedicated to collecting sargassum in the water and will expand cleanup work in the navigation channel between central Mahahual and the entrance to Quebrado Norte.
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