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Beaches without plastic in Cyprus - 1st July 2022

In Cyprus, tourists and local businesses are trying something new. They aren't using plastic. It's to help Cyprus's beaches.

Two beaches are stopping plastic. It's the idea of a travel company, TUI. Veronika Blach works for TUI.

Veronika Blach: "It's important that we all work together, especially the tourism sector. There's so much to be done. Think of all the businesses, the bars, restaurants, hotels, and how much plastic is consumed there. There's so many reductions but there's still so much plastic, so we can do so much more together."

Hotels and cafes are working with TUI. Chris Karas owns a restaurant. It wasn't easy when they started.

Chris Karas: "At the beginning, it was difficult to think that we would not have single-use plastics such as water bottles, etc. But, slowly slowly, with the help of the initiative, and with the will of our staff and us as managers, I think we quickly realised that it isn't actually that hard. But we're only at the beginning of the goal we're trying to achieve – to save the environment."

In 2019 we used 90 percent of the world's plastic only once. Now, in Cyprus, tourists get water to drink from special stations. They fill their water bottles there for free.

Panagiota Koutsofta's the manager of this new idea against plastic. She's very happy. And she has big plans for the future.

Panagiota Koutsofta: "We have succeeded since the beginning of the project to reduce the use of single-use plastics – adding up to the weight of 23 aircrafts Boeing 737. Therefore, our goal is to reduce the use of more plastics – why not maybe adding up to the equivalent weight of thousands of aircrafts, why not!"

Tourists can help to clean the beaches too. They pick up plastic and old cigarettes.

The things people find are important. The information goes to a science centre. Countries will use the information to help make Europe clean.