The Adriatic might look stunningly clean, but what lies beneath might shock you…
Every year just before the opening of the main tourist season in Croatia, numerous ”actions” to rid the sea and the seabed of waste, with harmful plastic particularly in mind, are carried out up and down the coast, on the islands, and in all seaside counties.
The goal of the cleanups is of course to keep the Adriatic as clean and beautiful as possible for the tourists and the money they bring, from which the locals in these destinations live, but to educate local people on the importance of maintaining the environment around them, caring for nature, and becoming much more aware of their potentially extremely negative impact on the environment, as well as the important steps they can take to reduce their negative footprint on the delicate eco system which surrounds us and provides a means of living.
On that note, one beautiful Istrian location took to cleaning their seabed, and about twenty divers from numeroud diving clubs from the southern part of Istria, as well as helpers, came together in the name of Mother Earth and participated in the praiseworthy eco-action of cleaning up Fažana’s harbour and seabed.
As Glas Istre writes on the 19th of May, 2018, all participants were rewarded with a free dinner after the cleanup ended. As was stated by Boris Vuksanović, more than two entire tonnes of waste has been collected in three areas where the cleaning took place – the most discarded ”items” were car tyres, iron tubing, glass, and plastic. Plastic arguably does the most damage to the sea and the underwater environment as it takes an incredibly long time to break down, and items such as discarded plastic bags can easily be mistaken by various animals, sea turtles in particular, for potential prey such as jellyfish.
The organisers of the Istrian cleanup action, which resulted in the removal of an extremely concerning amount of rubbish from the sea, were CPA Mornar Pula, PŠRD Sardela, Fažana Municipality and the Brioni Sailing Club, while the sponsor was the Fažana Tourist Board.
