ZAGREB, 12 April 2022 - Participants in a "green" regatta on Monday removed abandoned waste from beaches and the seabed around the island of Šolta.

During the cleanup, over 700 kilos of waste was collected and most of it was plastic, which poses the biggest threat to marine life.

The "Cleaning Sailing Race Regatta", held on that Adriatic island off Split, included 12 divers who removed the waste from the seabed.

The partners in this campaign are the Split-based Sunce association and the Biotherm cosmetics and healthcare items brand.

Gabrijela Medunić Orlić, the executive director of the Sunce association, said that nowadays, public beaches are kept in good shape by local utility companies, however, other beaches are often full of litter and the utilities do not have enough workers to clean them up.

Keeping on top of things and putting the environment first isn't always easy in the time in which we currently live, but a beach cleanup is a more than excellent way to start. In Croatia, such seabed and beach cleanup actions take place quite regularly up and down the coast, with the most emphasis being placed on the pre and post season.

During this somewhat turbulent time of year, it's typical for unstable weather conditions and strong winds and currents to wreak havoc to some degree or another, often bringing in unwanted rubbish from other parts of the coast, sometimes even dragging up piles of waste on currents from Albania to Dubrovnik.

Plastic pollution is an increasingly dangerous threat to the world's seas and oceans, and while various laws continue to be passed to either ban or at least limit the use of ''throw away'' plastic products, the issue remains a pressing one. A well organised beach cleanup is an excellent way to combat the problem.

As Morski writes on the 1st of November, 2018, beautiful Mljet has experienced a proverbial reincarnation this year, as 32 volunteers participated in a program to clean up as many as fifteen bays and coves on Mljet, which is otherwise one of the country's most breathtaking national parks, located not too far from Dubrovnik.

This year's volunteer program, developed by JUNP Mljet and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Energy through the EU Integration Project Natura 2000, was successfully completed, with 71 volunteers participating in all of the four volunteer programs.

For the first time, NP Mljet welcomed international volunteers from Lithuania, Australia, America, and neighbouring Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina to help clean up the national park's many bays and coves. Over 400 plastic bags, sewage, glass and various other types of waste was successfully removed from Mljet's shoreline.

Want to keep up with more news about how the environment is taken care of in Croatia and how you might be able to help? Make sure to follow Total Eco Croatia.

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