“Plastic: The New Continent”, broadcast by the Portuguese television network TVI on 10 August, 2020, won, with the unanimity of the jury, for “impacting images that reflect a huge global problem and the invasion of plastics in the seas”. The award-winning report by Catarina Isabel Canelas Gonçalves was made in conjunction with João Franco, Nélson Costa and Teresa Almeida.

According to the Spanish news agency EFE, the King of Spain Award highlights the work that contributes to the communication of sustainable development behaviours and models, as well as to a greater socio-environmental culture. The work extensively documents, with a series of reports, among others, in Portugal, Cape Verde, Belgium, Norway or the Dominican Republic, the dangers that presuppose the presence of plastic in the ocean, especially for marine animals, for wildlife , in general, and for humans.

The report collects opinions from experts, researchers, scientists and from conservation organizations and ecologists who also work in the fight against plastic. Environmental and Sustainable Development Journalism is one of the awards that highlight media professionals received today at the 38th edition of the King of Spain International Journalism Awards, to which 155 applications from more than two dozen Ibero-American countries competed.