DUNEA and Mala Sirena held workshops for 150 high school students in Dubrovnik

Students from the Dubrovnik Maritime Technical and Tourism and HORECA Secondary School had the opportunity to participate in two workshops focusing on the problem of marine litter, held on 18 and 23 April 2018

The workshops were organized by the Regional Development Agency DUNEA and the Environmental Association “Mala Sirena” within the URBAN-WASTE project’s framework, or precisely – the implementation phase of measures aiming at improving the environment in touristic areas. More than 150 students learnt how to reduce the amount of waste that is produced in everyday life, with concrete examples, and they got acquainted with the dangers of marine litter, primarily plastics that constitute more than the 90% of it.

Additionally, the workshops presented the entire life cycle of plastic in the marine environment and its impact on the plant and animal world. Results from recent studies showed that the Mediterranean, and thus the Adriatic Sea, has been identified as an area with one of the largest volumes of accumulated plastics. Consequently, the workshops also underlined how the plastic improperly used and disposed never disappears, it returns instead into our tables through sea products for instance. And the Dubrovnik-Neretva County is influenced by a huge amount of garbage accumulating on beaches, mainly due to human activity, i.e. failures in the waste management system.

The education program is key in raising awareness among children, young people and the general public, and also provides an expert basis for decision making and the creation of a waste management policy. The basis of ecological education of each society is the education of student and student population as a category of society that will play an important role in socio-economic progress.