Over an initiative organised in the Kuriat Island (Monastir Bay) for a cleaner sea
Collected 5,085 plastic boxes during beach clean-up campaigns since the beginning of 2021, and about 1000 of plastic traps abandoned in sea depth on the Kuriat islands
The National Institute of Marine Sciences and Technologies (INSTM) and Notre Grand Bleu join Clean Up The Med, the awareness and international campaign to raise awareness among citizens on the reduction of marine litter. The campaign returned on May 14, for two mobilization weekends that will involves associations, universities, municipalities, public bodies, schools and citizens. From Morocco to France, from Greece to Malta, from Croatia to Palestine, hundreds of volunteers also this year will meet each other on the beaches of the whole Mediterranean, armed with buckets, sacks, and gloves with a single goal: to clean them of waste for a cleaner sea.
The campaign started on the weekend of 14, 15 and 16 May and will continue throughout the Mediterranean on the weekend of 28, 29 and 30 May. A major environmental volunteer initiative promoted this year by COMMON (COastal Management and Monitoring Network for tackling marine litter in Mediterranean sea), a European project funded by Eni CBC Med Programme that involves Italy, Lebanon and Tunisia with the aim of protecting the coasts of the Mediterranean from the marine litter through sustainable management.
This year, despite the arrival of a marked summer for the second consecutive year since the Covid-19 emergency, 85 organizations from 16 countries have joined the initiative: Italy, France, Spain, Algeria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Croatia, Cyprus, Morocco, Malta, Turkey, Libya, Greece, and Monaco. In addition to the physical removal of waste, the campaign aims to raise awareness in the community, to restore cleaner beaches, coasts, and reefs and to monitor the health of the Mediterranean coasts. The campaign will take place in complete safety, a sign that the fight for a cleaner planet is a priority without borders.
The National Institute of Marine Sciences and Technologies and the Notre Grand Bleu association have joined the international campaign Clean Up the Med 2021, with more than 30 volunteers that will participate in this campaign to clean the Kuriat island beaches and Monastir coast. Notre Grand Bleu has collected 5,085 plastic boxes during beach clean-up campaigns since the beginning of 2021, and about 1000 of plastic traps abandoned in sea depth on the Marine Protected Area of Kuriat islands. We rely on the awareness of the local community to reduce their use of plastic in order to conserve our future environment, for the future generations.
Every year, the beaches and the seabed of the Mediterranean Sea collect more than 8 tons of waste, of which over 80% is plastic: from bottle caps to toys, from cotton buds to bags. Human activities and poor waste management on land are, as is now known to most, among the main causes of stranded waste. As stated by the World Bank, in the southern Mediterranean countries a constant trend towards increasing per capita waste production has emerged in recent years, with an average of 489 kg of waste per year, which is destined to increase in the future (+ 29% in 2030 and + 50% in 2050) because of population growth and the predominant linear economic paradigm. Even if the data available for the Southern Mediterranean countries are limited, an increase in the plastic fraction seems to be emerging.
On the occasion of the campaign, the COMMON project allows the monitoring and collection of useful data to analyse the state of health of the Mediterranean: the kilos and the type of waste collected during each appointment will be processed and made available on www.commonproject.it, a portal created to collect information and tools on the problem of marine litter in the Mediterranean Sea and to enhance the importance of protecting our sea and the biodiversity it preserves. Furthermore, also this year the number of gloves, masks and protective devices will be surveyed.
The Scheduled activities:
. On May 30, 2021, a clean-up campaign and awareness-raising activities in the Kuriat Islands.
It is possible to join one or more activities on the calendar by writing to:
sana.benismail@instm.rnrt.tn or hamdi.commonproject@gmail.com
And if you want to join as a group, or simply want to clean your nearest beaches, you can tag COMMON Med Project on social media with the hashtag #CleanUpTheMed.