The cleaning of Alimos beach from litter and cigarette butts was carried out on Sunday morning, May 18, by volunteers, NGOs and networks, as part of the action “Delete Pollution, Upload Clean Coasts”, which took place on the initiative of the Information Society with the assistance of the General Secretariat for Information Systems and Digital Governance and was co-organised by the Municipality of Alimos.
Present were Information Society’s CEO Stavros Asthenidis, General Secretary of the General Secretariat for Information Systems and Digital Governance (G.S.I.S.D.G.) Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos, and Deputy Mayor of Environment, Recycling & Sanitation of the Municipality of Alimos Yiannis Antonakis.
The Municipality of Alimos embraced Information Society’s initiative from the very first moment by allowing the use of the beach and providing gloves, garbage bags and the garbage truck for the collection of the garbage. Six men from the Association of Greek Frogmen collected garbage in the sea.
On the occasion of the event, the General Secretary of Information Systems presented the My Coast app alongside employees, who demonstrated in practice and on tablets the way citizens can use the app to check and report violations at the beaches.
Several NGOs, volunteer organizations, networks and companies, such as Cigaret Cycle, collaborated to collect 1.61 Kg (Kilos) of cigarette butts, which were removed from the beach (these correspond to 6,440 individual cigarette butts or 3,220 m3 of seawater saved from pollution). Other participants were the Association of Greek Frogmen, CsR Hellas, and Humanity Greece, the latter providing volunteers for the collection of litter, and AB Vassilopoulos, which supplied water to the volunteers who took part in the action as a generous gesture.
As Mr. Anagnostopoulos pointed out to Athens Macedonian News Agency, this is an “excellent initiative, where the Information Society, the Ministry and many other entities have the opportunity to carry out a social action, something we all have to do when we are at the beach, which is doing our part to clean the beach as much as we can so we can have better and cleaner beaches for our families”. Mr. Anagnostopoulos mentioned the success of the My Coast app, saying “if we download the app, we will be able to use the technology and in this way make our lives better and keep our beaches much cleaner and tidier, just as we envision and want for our country.” Overall, Mr. Anagnostopoulos pointed out that “last year, just by knowing that citizens have and can use such an application, unlawful actions at the beaches dropped dramatically. We are doing well, but there is always room for improvement”, he said.
For his part, Mr. Asthenidis told the Athens Macedonian News Agency that “today’s action is an initiative by the Information Society that proves that it is not limited to the digital transformation of the public sector, and we should not forget that we live in an environment that we should take care of and that, within the framework of the corporate social responsibility we are developing, we also cooperate with the Local Authorities and other bodies, as well as the citizens.” What this action highlights, he added, is that “the environment we live in must meet our expectations and align with all the technological developments we have.”
When asked by the Athens Macedonian News Agency whether there is a plan to expand the application to an information platform for all beaches that demonstrate a good example, Mr. Asthenidis said that “this prospect can be implemented in cooperation with the G.S.I.S.D.G. and all other bodies that may be involved, such as the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Environment and, more widely, local organisations and the Regions.”
“There’s only one message: take care of public spaces. Public spaces do not belong to someone else, they are ours and if we as citizens do not take care of them, there will be no one who will take care of us”, said the CEO of Information Society.
Thanking Information Society for the initiative, Deputy Mayor Antonakis told the Athens Macedonian News Agency that “this action is important for environmental protection and for a sustainable city” and stressed its importance for raising awareness among citizens, especially the young children who participated in this initiative. “The Municipality of Alimos will always support actions such as this. It is an important yet difficult thing to gather so many people, however we will always be there.”