Volunteers remove plastic waste from Egypt's beach

Volunteers cleaned up the seafloor and parts of the beach in the popular Egyptian tourist spot of Sharm el-Sheikh on Friday, collecting several bags of plastic waste.

Dozens of volunteers came from all over the city to remove plastic waste that had been piling up. The cleanup campaign in Sharm el-Sheikh was led by the Chamber of Diving and Water Sports and was organized in coordination with the Egyptian Environment Ministry.

The campaign comes weeks ahead of the U.N.'s COP-27 conference in the Red Sea resort in November. Tobias Kruse, Dy Ambassador of European Union in Egypt said “We have come here to partner up with the Ministry of Environment, the governorate and UNDP (United Nations Development Program) and especially a group of young volunteers to clean up a few beaches and a few places in the region, especially collecting plastic because we are jointly fighting plastic waste. This is linked to fighting climate change which is about the future of our planet, so we are very happy to see so many young people with us today."

In 2017, Egypt also launched an EU-funded initiative to encourage people to limit their use of plastic bags and to shift to more environment-friendly alternatives.