The BeMed Association, in the framework of its fourth call for projects, has selected six in North Africa. These projects deal with the fight against plastic waste in the Mediterranean. The most polluted sea in the world, which receives more than 600,000 tons of plastic waste every year.
North Africa remains mobilised in the fight against plastic pollution in the Mediterranean Sea. Six projects in this region won the fourth call for projects launched by the BeMed association. The winners are all environmental protection associations and NGOs. Four are based in Tunisia, one in Libya and one in Egypt.
In Egypt, the selected project is that of the VeryNile association, which focuses on “the involvement of Nile fishermen in the collection of plastic before its arrival at sea and raising awareness among the population”.
The list of BeMed 2020 winners was published on March 30, 2020. The list also includes nine other projects, located in European countries along the Mediterranean (Montenegro, Cyprus, France, Malta, Albania, Greece, Lebanon, and Italy). Under the terms of the call for projects launched on 4 October 2019, the selected projects have a duration of 12 to 18 months, and the funding allocated to each project amounts to a maximum of €10,000.
Plastic pollution in the Mediterranean
The fourth promotion of the BeMed initiative has 16 winners from 11 different countries. This allows the BeMed network to be present today in 15 countries around the Mediterranean, with a total of 54 projects supported.
The projects supported by the BeMed association all have the same goal, that of combating plastic pollution in the Mediterranean Sea. For the Mediterranean Sea is turning into a dangerous plastic waste sink, with record levels of pollution endangering marine species and human health. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Mediterranean Sea is now the most affected in the world by plastic pollution. Every year, 600,000 tonnes of plastics are dumped there. “That’s the equivalent of 34,000 plastic bottles thrown into the Mediterranean every minute,” said Ludovic Frère-Escoffier, head of WWF’s Ocean Life Programme.
The association Beyond Plastic Med (BeMed) was founded during the international conference “Plastics in the Mediterranean: beyond the facts, what solutions?” held in Monaco on March 10 and 11 March 2015. Its founding members, which are the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the Tara Ocean Foundation, Surfrider Foundation Europe and the Mava Foundation, were joined four years later by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Boris Ngounou
