The 2016 beach cleanup and chiringuitos campaign has been completed!

This July, AKTI Project and Research Centre organised​ 10 beach cleanups with 10 local authorities within the framework of the MarLitCy project. The campaign included two actions:

1. Beach Cleanups with sorting and recording of the collected marine litter using the Ocean Conservancy protocol. All the data have been entered into our Marine Litter Database.
   
2. Chiringuitos Responsables: beach bars and restaurants were informed about ways in which they can become more environmentally friendly. Those bars and restaurants that agreed to adhere to a Decalogue of Good Practice became member's of the 'Responsible Beach Bars' network.
   

The cleanup activities showed that cigarette butts remain a big problem on touristic beaches in Cyprus, since 58% of the collected litter (by number) was cigarette butts. Small pieces of plastic were also important marine litter items, and made up 11% of the collected litter (by number of items).

The Chiringuitos Responsables campaign was a great success - 48 chiringuitos were informed about environmentally friendly practices, of which 29 joined the 'Responsible Beach Bars' network.

In this year's campaign, 230 individuals were directly involved, whereas indirectly the campaign reached out to 1940 people.

We would like to express our sincere thanks to all the volunteers and all the municipalities for their collaboration and enthusiasm!! Together we can keep our coasts clean!