Greece’s first (almost) smoke-free beach will be a reality this summer thanks to an initiative called Sea Change Greek Islands, a project between the Municipality of Serifos and the A.C. Laskaridis Charitable Foundation.
The initiative aims to make the island’s Vagia beach the first (almost) smoke-free beach in Greece. Vagia is a wide sandy coast with crystal clean water and one of the most beautiful locations on the Aegean.
The project includes the creation of a designated smoking area on part of the beach with ashtrays bearing environmental messages aimed at sensitizing visitors to the polluting impact of cigarette butts.
The long-term goal of the project is to transform Vagia into the first smoke-free beach in Greece and to raise awareness of the harm that cigarette butts have on marine life.
The most littered item in the world
The Ocean Conservancy has sponsored a beach cleanup every year since 1986. For 32 consecutive years, cigarette butts have been the single most collected item on the world’s beaches, with a total of more than 60 million collected over that time.
That amounts to about one-third of all collected items and more than plastic wrappers, containers, bottle caps, eating utensils and bottles, combined.
