Green Initiatives on the Greek Islands

The Greek Islands, like every other tourist attraction on Earth, are in danger of succumbing to the effects of pollution and plastic waste. While extremely clean compared to other parts of the world, the seas surrounding the Greek Islands have their share of plastic waste floating in the waters and littering the beaches. Luckily, there are steps being enacted to preserve these havens, reduce the damage and reverse it.

The island of Paros is leading the way to eliminating plastic waste with the help of organizations like Common Seas. Common Seas works to identify the sources of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans and enact best practices to recycle, manage the waste and reverse the damage done.

Clean Blue Paros is a program of Common Seas’ Clean Blue Alliance, enacted to focus on efforts to clean up the local waters by reducing plastic use. Paros was chosen as the flagship for this program due to a 350 percent increase in plastic waste around the island annually during tourist season. While the waste increases exponentially each year, Paros faces a problem unique to all islands: limited space. The island’s landfills are quickly reaching capacity and tourist interest in the island only increases each year. With the help of Clean Blue Paros the island is on track to be the first Mediterranean island free from plastic waste.

The government, citizens and businesses of Paros are eager to solve the problem and are therefore adopting initiatives like a ban on plastic straws and customer incentives to use refillable containers instead of single-use plastics like water bottles. The program will hopefully spread to other Greek Islands in the near future in order to preserve delicate island ecosystems.