The Cyprus Responsible Coastal Businesses Network against Single-Use Plastics
© AKTI
This initiative aims
to minimize single-use plastic in coastal areas by promoting producer and user
responsibility. This initiative will include a series of interrelated
activities as follows:
- Organization
of field trips and beach clean-ups with coastal business owners, beach visitors
and local communities to identify the sources of marine litter;
- Production of
a guide highlighting the practices that can be applied by everyone in order to
reduce the single-use plastics;
- Organization
of an extensive awareness raising campaign in the summer of 2019 to enlarge the
existing network of responsible coastal businesses that was created through the
previous phase of the initiative in 2017.
- Implementation
of school visits to inform and raise awareness of children and youth about the
problem of single-use plastics and its negative impact on the marine
environment.
- Organization
of a highly publicized final event to present the outcomes of the Initiative.
The event will be organised on a boat, in order to promote the symbolism of
Litter Free Mediterranean. During the event, Local Authorities and
Organisations that supported the activities of this initiative will be
recognised and honoured.
- Implementation
of a communication campaign all along the Initiative, targeting various
audiences through a range of means.
The active involvement of coastal local authorities both during the
beach clean-ups and the visits of coastal business will ensure the
sustainability and feasibility of the proposed solutions.
- Organisation of workshops bringing together 100 local stakeholders: public, private, ambassadors, NGOs and citizens.
- Organisation of a competition to come up with practical, sustainable solutions, with the winner proposing the use of straws made from baked pasta.
- Development of a best practice guide available on their website.
- Collection of waste, the data collected being sent to the Marine Litter Watch database.
By the end of the project, the network had grown from 78 to 103 partners !
