Egyptian activists hold beach cleanup ahead of COP27

In just a few months Sharm el-Sheikh will host the COP27 summit, after Egypt assumed the presidency of the United Nations climate talks. 

But some climate activists are taking matters into their own hands, not content to wait for world leaders to make policy decisions or their own government, which announced plans to reduce annual consumption of single-use plastic bags per person to 50 by 2030.

Banlastic is a group of environmental activists who aim to spread awareness on climate change. The group started to carry out activities in 2018, with a long-term goal of urging people to cut plastic usage and promote policy change.

Recently, they decided to clean a public beach in Alexandria, this time to promote the upcoming summit.

"The cleanup event today is one of the 27 events we are conducting this year; we are cleaning the public beach of Dekheila, and we target public beaches specifically because people need awareness about the problem of the waste they leave behind, and of course, in a city like Alexandria, we suffer a lot in the summer from the problem of waste," said Manar Ramadan, co-founder of Banlastic Egypt Initiative.

The event saw dozens of volunteers, who collected litter in bags to be later categorized into either recyclable waste, or plastic convertible into fuel.

“I feel proud today of many things, because any awareness campaign against single-use plastic always starts small, but now many people are interested in joining the events. The number of volunteers increases in every event," said Ahmed Yassin, co-founder of Banlastic.

There’s still a lot to do, but the determined climate activists are happy with their ability to take part in cleaning the world – one bag at a time.