The European Interreg Europe project "CAPonLITTER – Capitalising good coastal practices and improving policies to prevent marine litter" in which the Region of Crete participated as a partner has been successfully completed.
The European Project aimed to improve policies and practices that can help prevent litter from coastal tourism and recreational activities. It focused on key waste fractions, such as plastic food and beverage containers from beach facilities and recreational events due to inappropriate consumer behaviour and lack of incentives and structures for waste prevention, collection and recycling. Through an inter-regional process of experience and knowledge exchange, ways of improving regional policies and promoting best practices were explored. The outcome was the development of 7 new regional Action Plans and the implementation of those practices in the regions concerned.
Participants came from the regions of Portugal, Spain, France, Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria, Spain, France, Bulgaria and Germany, where coastal tourism is a key economic activity. These regions are not only affected by marine litter but can also put significant pressure on local infrastructure and generate large amounts of unmanaged waste.
During the last partners' meeting in Brussels, Eleni Tzagaraki, project coordinator, presented the project-related activities of the Region of Crete, while Vassiliki Madoulka, a member of the working group, also participated in the meeting. The CAPonLITTER project was coordinated by the Region of Crete and the Regional Councilor for European and International Affairs Alexakis George and was implemented by the Department of Technical Projects of the Region in Heraklion.
