“You’re mortal but your waste is not” – last August, TURCEV (the Blue Flag National Operator in Turkey) spread a powerful message on one of its Blue Flag beaches
©Kusadasi Municipality
By the end of August, Take Care of Your Beach Project aimed to raise beach users’ awareness among beach cleanliness in Turkey. Coordinated by the National Blue Flag Operator (TURCEV) with the help of Kusadasi Municipality and Aydin Metropolitan Municipality, the initiative took place on Kadinlar Denizi beach, also called “Ladies Beach”. Volunteer university students from different universities in Turkey took part to this 4-day awareness project held on this Blue Flag beach. From kids to adults, it was the opportunity to highlight how everyone plays a key role in the coasts’ cleanliness.
“Here we see some children playing with cigarette butts with no awareness about their harm and we tried to change this sad situation during this week. I hope we won’t see this anymore” – Deniz Cansu Ogul, Middle East Technical University, Environmental Eng. Dep.”
©Kusadasi Municipality
For the occasion, several activities such as cigarette butt collection contests, interviews and questionnaires with beach users, and beach cleanliness level measurements have been presented by the volunteers. From kids to adults by way of volunteers, all of the participants became more conscious of their impact on the cleanliness of the beaches and will now be environmental ambassadors spreading environmentally-friendly practices. Nevertheless, the public only became motivated thanks to volunteers’ tenacity to inform and insist on taking actions to protect the environment.
““With this project, I realized that I also changed a lot, realising people can also change their minds with simple motivating actions. Thank you to all the people organising this powerful activity for all” – Berk Ozkizikli, Hacettepe University, Faculty of Medicine.”
©Kusadasi Municipality
TURCEV and the municipalities have held this project every year at different Blue Flag beaches since 2010. This is a good example of the work done by the Blue Flag National Operators in spreading of environmentally-friendly practices and raising the public’s awareness.