In collaboration with the Municipality of Antiparos and the kind sponsorship of PepsiCo Hellas we are developing an innovative program to address the issue of marine litter on the island through holistic interventions. The program comes to complete other important initiatives and actions undertaken by the municipality in collaboration with our organization, aiming to promote the message of recycling and the circular economy and actively involving the local community, tourism businesses and tourists.
More specifically, we are adopting all organized beaches of Antiparos and planning several initiatives to raise visitors’ awareness of the value of recycling and the environmental issues arising from the reckless disposal of single use packaging in the marine environment. At the same time, we seek to mobilize tourism professionals through specially designed workshops for changes in our daily habits that could have a positive impact on the marine environment.
With this initiative, our organization completes the framework of numerous activities for the prevention and decontamination of the seabed and beaches of Antiparos and helps local authorities in order to significantly reduce marine pollution on the island.
Kifissos’ coastal & marine litter turn into recycling bins in Antiparos
The first activity of the project, which will be implemented in collaboration with the Municipality of Antiparos and PepsiCo Hellas and concerns the installation of recycling bins on the beaches of the island, was completed with a large participation of volunteers. The activity, attended by more than 80 PepsiCo Hellas employees, included a voluntary coastal clean-up of the Peace and Friendship Stadium beach and a recycling workshop by the Athens Makerspace team.
The aim of this activity was to highlight the problem of marine pollution and to make the participants aware of the impact that our daily habits have on the environment as well as our individual environmental footprint. At the same time, the workshop highlighted the value of recycling and reuse of waste in the context of the circular economy. More specifically, the plastic lids that were collected during the clean-up were sorted in order to compose the construction material for the first of the recycling bins that will be installed in Antiparos.
Thanks to everyone for their warm participation that resulted in the complete decongestion of the beach from thousands of litter, as well as the Administration Department of SEF for all the aid.
Recycling bins made from plastic bottle caps
Circular economy in action with the active participation of the local community
We are rapidly moving forward with our pilot project as we received from Antiparos 400 kg of bottle caps collected by the local community. The caps were transferred to the Athens Makerspace laboratory, they went in the process of recycling and produced recycling bins that will be placed on 10 beaches of Antiparos.
Besides, Antiparos is a symbolic island for our organization as holistic interventions for the marine environment have been developed there since the beginning of our work, both in terms of prevention and in terms of contamination.
Τhe first island to be officially adopted by Αegean Ρebreath
#KeepAntiparosClean
Τhe installation of three-stream recycling bins for plastic, glass and aluminium on 10 beaches of Antiparos has been completed. This is essentially the start of an innovative program that we envisioned a long time ago: the installation of small marine litter stations throughout the island in order to directly serve citizens and visitors by implementing sorting at the source. In perfect cooperation and planning with the Municipality of Antiparos and the support of Pepsico Hellas, we can now talk about the total management and decongestion of the coastal front of an island.
With the slogan and hashtag #KeepAntiparosClean, one can find these special hubs of environmental awakening and action on Livadia, Agios Ioannis, Psaraliki, Sifneiko, Apandima, Soros, Panagia, Diapori, Agios Spyridonas and Glyfa beaches.
The bins were designed and built from scratch from 400 kg of recycled lids collected by the island’s residents throughout the previous years, a fact that makes our pilot program even more significant. This way, the circular economy is put into practice in a unique way with the participation of the whole community which remunerates the fruits of its efforts.
Three local seaside catering businesses, Fanari Beach Bar, Time Marine and Soros Beach Antiparos also participate in the programme which, to their credit, agreed to contribute to our effort and spread the message to their customers, placing clay recycling containers at their facilities as well.
