SIPOON SANOMAT 3.4.2021

Tomi Koivulehto wants to clean the Baltic Sea one boat hull at a time – "The harms of toxic paints should be recognized like the dangers of asbestos"Tomi Koivulehto is part of the Toxin-Free Boating movement. Its purpose is to advocate for both boaters and the environment by providing information on toxin-free boating and service providers. 

– My grandparents once acquired a summer place at Katriholmen, where I spent a lot of time as a child with my cousins. The place, located in front of Gumbostrand, is still owned by the family. So, the Sipoo archipelago has become familiar to me, he explains.

Now, years later, Koivulehto works for the archipelago nature and the Baltic Sea through his own boating business. His mission is to save the waterways so that future generations can enjoy clean nature.

– In Finland, 850,000 kilograms of toxic paints, so-called biocidal antifouling paints, are sold annually, used to keep recreational boat hulls clean. This amount of paint contains 17,000 kilograms of copper. That is more than the pulp and paper industry, metal manufacturing, municipal wastewater, and mining activities combined, Koivulehto points out.

As the paints dissolve from boat hulls during use, the toxic paint with copper eventually ends up in the sea, where it harms the environment.

– Copper makes certain organisms, like the blue mussel, infertile, Koivulehto says.

"I hope the harms of toxic paints will be recognized in the same way as the dangers of asbestos."

To solve the problem, Koivulehto founded last year together with his friend Stefan Koskinen a company, Brush ´n Go, which offers a toxin-free alternative for cleaning boat hulls.

In practice, the boat hull is cleaned with a street broom-type cleaning trailer designed for this purpose, which boat washers drive from the boat ramp into the sea. After this, the boat is winched over the rotating brushes that remove barnacles, algae, and other impurities from the hull.

The cleaning is done with seawater without detergents. According to Koivulehto, cleaning takes about 15 minutes.

– Boating is a conservative field where many things have been done in a certain way. Luckily, the mindset is changing. I hope that in a few years the harms of toxic paints will be as well known as the dangers of asbestos are now, he says.

The company organized cleaning days in Gumbostrand already last summer. According to Koivulehto, the reception was so good that there will be continuation in Sipoo also next summer.

– We will be both in Gumbostrand and Sipoonranta weekly from mid-June until mid-August. After that, cleaning services will be available until the end of October, he explains.

 

https://www.sipoonsanomat.fi/paikalliset/4088233