On Wednesday, 2nd of November 2022, representatives of each partner of the project titled “Reducing the consumption and distribution of single-use plastics in the tourism industry in Cyprus, Greece and Malta”, also known as “SUPMed”, met in Crete to discuss and coordinate the project. By taking into consideration that the project will be ended in less than a year (June 2023), the partnership of the project organised the on-site project meeting in order to plan the next steps of the project and most importantly, to finalise one of the most significant deliverables of the project, the Best Practice Guide.
Since due to COVID-19, the partners haven’t had the chance to meet in person in Crete and all the press events were held online, as part of meeting, the host partner, Anelixis Development Consultants S.A., organised site visits to the tourist establishments that participates in the pilot sample in Crete. During the site visits, representatives of the pilot sample discussed the so far experience of participating in the pilot sample of the project with the partners and the measures that they have applied based on the actions proposed through the action plans. One representative highlighted the importance of having the partners of the project supporting their transition from using Single-Use Plastics to environmentally friendlier and cost-efficient alternatives. Also, it has been stated that unique tools as DST can be a way to motivate tourist establishments to comply with relevant EU legislations, and further cut down their consumption of Single-Use Plastics.
SUPMed project will run until June 2023 with a total budget of 1,279,405.00 euros. The six partners taking part at the consortium of the project are Aspon Consulting Ltd – Leader Partners (CY), Heraklion Chamber (GR), Anelixis Development Consultants S.S.A. (GR), Cellock Ltd (CY), AIS Environment (MT) and Cyprus Hotel Association (CY). Upon completion of the project, the partnership of SUPMed project aims to reduce the consumption, disposal and impact of single-use plastics in the tourism sector in three Mediterranean regions (Cyprus, Greece, Malta) in line with the EU Directive 2019/904 for the reduction of the impact of plastic products.
About the project:
The project consortium aims to reduce the consumption, disposal and impacts of SUP in the tourism sector in these three regions, in line with EU Directive 2019/904 on the reduction of the impacts of plastic products. Through this project, the partners will support samples of coastal tourist establishments in Cyprus, Malta and Greece (Crete) via pilots to move to sustainable resource-efficient business models. The establishments will identify and replace commonly-used SUP with environmentally friendlier, readily available and affordable alternatives. The pilot samples will be supported in phasing out and replacing SUP via a bespoke free web-based decision-support tool (DST) that will be developed. The DST will present viable and available alternatives to the most commonly used SUP, taking into consideration the cost and environmental impacts of each alternative across its life-cycle.
Following the completion of the pilot in each of the three regions, best practise guides will be developed that will present the findings of the pilots, the impacts of plastic waste on human health and the environment, how to reduce SUP in the tourism and other sectors and what environmentally friendlier and affordable alternatives are available. These guides will be disseminated to SMEs, NGOs, tourist establishments and other relevant stakeholders in the three regions and across Europe, as an additional support tool in replacing SUPs.
The project “Reducing the consumption and disposal of single-use plastics in the tourism industry in Cyprus, Greece and Malta” is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.
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