Litter

In an effort to reduce the amount of litter in the streets, the municipality of Athens adopted the interactive "Gopa project" which urges smokers to vote on a number of topics by throwing their cigarette butts in containers installed around the city.

The Council of the European Union has adopted the ambitious measures proposed by the European Commission to tackle marine litter coming from the 10 single-use plastic products most commonly found on European beaches as well as abandoned fishing gear and oxo-degradable plastics.

Single-use plastic items such as plates, cutlery, straws, balloon sticks or cotton buds, will be banned in the EU under plans adopted on Wednesday.

These products, which make up over 70% of marine litter, will be banned from the EU market from 2021, under draft plans approved by Parliament.

While countries and organisations around the world continue to compete to conquer space, Poland has taken the lead in a slightly different sphere: cleaning the skies of space debris, reported Emerging-Europe.

Volunteer divers involved in the Aegean Rebreath initiative conducted a cleanup operation at the port of the Saronic island of Poros on Monday, bringing up tons of waste, including sail cloths, rubber tires, fishing nets and glass bottles.

Today is U.N. World Environment Day, a good occasion to remind ourselves of the growing problem of marine litter. Did you know that 8 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year?

Spanish volunteer Fran Vargas digs the sand to pull out a buried bag as others hold bags with garbage during a trash collection at Kolovrechtis wetland near Halkida, Evia island. Greece has the European Union's longest coastline, poor waste management and an addiction to single-use plastic that littering the country's seabed.

As ships, stations, and other satellites come crashing down to Earth, many end up making planet-fall at the same spot in the Pacific Ocean just south of New Zealand. For years these downed science vessels have simply sunk down to the bottom of the sea in a place now known as the Spacecraft Cemetery.

486 beaches in Greece have been awarded the Blue Flag this year!

Hollywood star Will Smith's teenage daughter Willow has made a hit on Instagram after posting photographs of her and her mother, Jada Pinkett Smith, cleaning up trash and debris from a beach on the Greek island of Antipaxi.

The Smiths are on a family cruise in the Ionian Sea and have visited Corfu as well as other islands in the area.