Want to know how the first Marine Litter Station in Greece became a success story? Almost a year ago our partners Aegean Rebreath started with the warm support by the Cyclades Preservation Fund and in cooperation with Δήμος Αντιπάρου / Municipality of Antiparosυ and Επιτροπή Ανακύκλωσης Δήμου Αντιπάρου – Antiparos Recycling Committee… a challenging and complex mission!
Today, the municipal authorities of Antiparos acknowledge that the marine litter station inspired the local authorities and individuals to build a recycling system in the island. Today, Antiparos is ranked fourth in recycling among all Aegean islands.
Furthermore, the engagement of the local fishing community is impressive, since local fishermen in cooperation with Aegean Rebreath encouraged fishing community in Santorini to set up nets collection points.
Most important, the Antiparos pilot project provided useful conclusions at national level, since other municipalities have asked from
Aegean Rebrath to establish similar stations. Nowadays, our partner has established 3 more stations in two islands (Paros, Syros) and 3 more are under development, while 3 net collections points (Santorini, Leukada) are already operational.
And some numbers:
After 6 months of operations (06-12.2019) the quantities collected through the Antiparos
station are the following:
Plastics: 2891
Glass: 1060
Aluminum: 1607
Nets: 1,45 tones
Finally, due to the activities undertaken by the local fishing community in cooperation with Aegean Rebreath, the Antiparos station received almost a 1.5 ton of nets from Santorini.
We feel saying a big thank you to all these individuals supporting our common work in Antiparos island as well as to BlueCycle for receiving and processing all these quantities of nets in their lab.