The Association of Culture and Friends of Paralio Astros (www.astrosparalio.gr) together with the Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association (www.helmepa.gr) had chosen this day to clean up the beach of Paralio Astros.
I saw the flyer last night at the info booth at the center square (πλατεία) and decided to join with the other volunteers this morning.
There were about a dozen of volunteers gathered at the beach near Cafe Del Mar at around 10:30 am (I was hoping to see more people, but maybe next time), and we started picking up garbages. Some of us were distributing beach ashtrays to people. These ashtrays were provided by the Japan Tabacco International (www.jti.com), if you have never seen a beach ashtray, you will see it in my photos below. If you are a smoker, you can call 800 801 5700 to get your beach ashtray.
After picking up 2 full bags of garbages, I have concluded the major pollutant of Paralio Astros beach is the cigarette end. Cigarette butts are found mostly underneath beach lounge chairs. The beach here is mostly pebbles, not much sand, so the sand cleaning machine cannot be used in pebbles to pick up cigarette ends.
I hope the government make it mandatory for the beach cafe bar operators to provide ashtrays to customers and to conduct examinations on beaches for cleanness at the season end before renewing next year's license to the operators. While making profits, the operators should ensure the beach areas under their control are kept clean.
Keeping our environment clean is everyone's business. Please leave a clean earth for our younger generation.
I hope the next project is to clean up Paralio Astros' graffitis.
I also hope that the municipality of Voria Kynouria could provide recycling bins in Paralio Astros because I have been collecting recyclable waste such as cans, papers, plastic bottles etc. to be transported back to Athens to dispose.
I wish everyone will always throw away garbages in the garbage bins from now on
This is a beach ashtray
This is a place where they sample the sea water for testing
Planter is not a garbage can! this is less than 5 meters away from the sampling sign of the above photo
This sign is less than 5 meters away from the planter above
This is 1 of the 2 bags of garbages I picked up, cigarette butts account for the most of all kinds of garbages
Environment protection is everyone's business
No comments:
Post a Comment