On Friday June 28 2024, the Make It Blue project volunteers hosted their second beach-cleaning event in Maiori. Again, they cleaned the beach but also this time, their biggest aim was to raise awareness about environment protection.
Consequently they did a lot of preparation according to that focus, especially through diverse games and interviews. For instance, their first game was a quiz composed of a few questions in order to make people realize the amount of sea pollution and waste in general. To give an idea, one of the questions was about how much plastic was recycled each year in Italy and the amount is so small compared to what it should be since it is only 30%.
Then, “Order the Disorder” (or in italian Ordina il Disordine) was the name of their second game in which people had to arrange five common types of waste, in particular a piece of aluminum, a plastic bag, a seed, a cardboard from a bottle of milk and a tissue based on the time of decomposition.
Thus, they asked some of the people on the beach to play these games and at the same time, took the opportunity to discuss with them about this matter. What resulted from this interviews is that in most cases people had no idea about how much time it took for trash to decompose.
After the questions as part of the games, we asked Mickaella what she did for the environment in her daily life.
“When I am at the beach and see some trash such as a plastic bag, I pick it up because I know that for example the turtles can get hurt because of that. Also I try to get a lot of information on the subject.”
Afterwards, we also asked Marialena and she shared with us her shock about the amount of cigarettes butts on the beach as well as the amount of plastic wasted.
With these multiple events, our volunteers are raising the awareness of more and more people and it will keep going that way since on the 5th of July 2024, another event will be organized.
Now, let’s introduce one of our volunteers for you to get to know them. Today we have Josef from Czech Republic and he is 19 years old.
– Why did you take part into the project?
First of all, I wanted to do something useful to the environment as well as for the people during the summer break. Then I also wanted to meet new people and be far from home to gain in autonomy and other skills. Finally, I was really interested in the project overall but especially the beach clean ups.
– How do you think you can contribute effectively into the project?
In my opinion, I have good leadership skills and social skills in general. Then, as I always try to be creative, I thought it would be practical for the renovation activities but also the organization of the beach-cleaning events.
– How will the project be useful for your future?
I am getting a lot of environmental knowledge, but I am also working on my people skills. Besides I also learned a lot of things and now I am becoming more flexible.