Goal 14: Life below water
- Community volunteering “AUEB Volunteers”: we volunteered cleaning a beach in cooperation with the Hellenic Marine Protection Association and we partnered with Safe Water Sports, in order to educate children about how to be safe at the beach and the sea.
- Partnership with Laskaridis Foundation
Within the framework of the memorandum of cooperation of AUEB with the Foundation "Aikaterini Laskaridis" the following actions were implemented or are expected to be implemented based on the 2019-2020 planning-report:A) Planning actions for informing the public focusing on the consequences of the use of plastic for the environment and society. The actions are planned to be implemented within the current year and concern:
- organization of an information day of separate thematic units in order to highlight the developments and the obstacles in the use of the plastic bag.
- organization of action in the Pikrodafni stream in the framework of the initiatives "Let's Clean Europe" and "Let's Do It Greece" in order to highlight the problem of transporting waste to the shores through rivers and streams.
- implementation of initiatives that involve the tourism industry due to its contribution to the problem of waste, but also the value of the clean natural environment to attract tourists.
- implementation of the initiative "Plastic and Sports" through which the connection of sports activities with the need to reduce disposable plastics is attempted.
- Continuation of the information campaign for the reduction of disposable plastics for the whole year 2020.
B) The operation of the "BlueCycle" program has started: "BlueCycle" is an independent program of Blue and Circular economy that holistically approaches the problem of marine plastic waste. With the vision of creating a new "life cycle" for these materials, "BlueCycle" is based on research, innovation, new technologies and creativity, proposing sustainable solutions in favor of environmental protection.
C) The "BlueCycle Lab" was created, which is a center for the processing and recycling of plastic equipment from fishing and shipping activities. In the "BlueCycle Lab" will be done:
- processing of plastics of fishing and shipping activity,
- research on the viability of materials and their new uses,
- design and development of products, services and / or works of art,
- quality control of the produced material.
3. Media awareness: through AUEB’s newspaper “OPAnews” as well as several press releases we raised awareness on the topic of life below water, through interviews, scientific articles written by our faculty members as well as communicated our seminars and events.