The international environmental campaign "Clean Beach" is held in the framework of cooperation between the cities of the Baltic Sea Region to develop the environmental cooperation, raise public awareness in environmental issues, and support the environmental volunteer movement. The event gives the participants an opportunity to learn more about the marine litter and contribute to cleaning the coastal area.
UBC Member Cities St. Petersburg (Russia), Tallinn (Estonia), Helsinki and Turku (Finland) were among the first to support the initiative.
Regional impact
“Clean Beach” campaign is organized as a contribution to the implementation of the HELCOM Regional Action Plan on Marine Litter (the HELCOM RAP ML), which aims to decrease marine litter by 2025. The campaign is open for participation to associations, societies, business, cities, institutions, students, families, groups of friends, as well as individual citizens.
Organize own campaign!
The main principles and ideas of the Clean Beach action are included into the Note of intent, which can be supported by any organization, city, association intending to join the campaign and/or conduct similar event. The Note of intent is already supported by:
- Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety of St. Petersburg
- City of Tallinn (Estonia)
- City of Helsinki (Finland)
- City of Turku (Finland)
- State company Mineral
- Leningrad region (the action in 2018 was supported by Nord Stream 2)
Clean Beach 2019 – event in St. Petersburg
04 May 2019 Clean Beach event in Helsinki
04 May 2019 Clean Beach event in Tallinn
18 May 2019 Clean Beach action 2019 in St. Petersburg
In Saint Petersburg, the campaign took place at the “Morskiye Dubki” beach in Primorsky district. The programme included interactive activities, environmental educational quest with 19 stages and 3 points with information about separate waste collection, monitoring of marine litter at beaches, field kitchen and other open space facilities. The programme was strongly connected to the Sustainable Development Goals, which provided the background for the scenario and quest designing. As a part of the event, the monitoring of marine litter on beaches applying HELCOM methodology and adopted methodology DeFishGear was implemented under the supervision and with the support of the representatives of NGO “Friends of the Baltic” (Coalition Clean Baltic) and the Russian expert for marine litter in HELCOM Mrs, Liudmila Filatova. The outcomes will be presented at HELCOM WG meeting in autumn 2019.
The honoured guests of the Campaign 2019 in St. Petersburg were Vice Governor of St. Petersburg Mr. Vladimir Kirillov, Head of Secretariat of the UBC Sustainable Cities Commission Mr. Björn Grönholm, Deputy Head of Tallinn Environment Department Mrs. Elena Sapp, Environmental Educator from the City of Helsinki Mrs. Asta Ekman. They greeted the participants on behalf of the partner cities.
The participating teams taking first, second and third places were awarded with prizes provided by the Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety of St. Petersburg, Nord Stream 2, Directorate for Nature Protection Areas of St. Petersburg and NGO “Razdelny sbor”. The winner got the Clean Beach Cup of the Governor of St. Petersburg.
Outcomes of the “Clean Beach” in St. Petersburg:
- More than 500 participants
- 40 volunteers assisted in arrangements
- 27 teams competed
- 15 universities delegated participants
- 3 NGOs involved in the event
- 19 stations of the environmental quest
- 3 points with information about principles and practices of separate waste collection
- a mobile air monitoring station
- a site to monitor the marine litter in accordance with the HELCOM Guideline and adopter methodology DeFishGear
- more than 40 m3 litter collected, incl. 217 bags of recyclable waste:
- 154 kg of glass
- 120 kg of metal
- 50 kg of PET (including bottles)
- 2 kg metal cans
The article and information provided by the organizers of the event in St. Petersburg (Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety of St. Petersburg, and State Company Mineral).
Photos by Björn Grönholm.