Recycling

The remote island of Tilos has won the prestigious European Business Promotion Awards 2024 (EEPA), surpassing strong initiatives from Austria and the Netherlands, thanks to its groundbreaking “Just Go Zero Tilos” program. The European Commissioner praised the “moving effort of a small, remote island” in achieving this success.

New developments are unfolding in Greece’s waste management landscape, as landfills are on track to become relics of the past. Waste is now being diverted exclusively toward recycling or biomass production, which can then be converted into energy.

Two months after Athens Mayor Haris Doukas acknowledged a waste management crisis, residents and business owners continue to face overflowing trash bins and unsightly litter. Many say the city is dirtier than it has been in the last decade, with streets marred by dripping trash bags and full bins. 

Two local government sanitation workers clean a river from plastic waste using a raft made of old plastic jerrycans in Jakarta on Sept. 20, 2024. (Photo by BAY ISMOYO / AFP)

The U.N. environment chief said Sunday she was beginning to see convergence on the world's first binding treaty on plastic pollution despite differences on production caps and a tax-like plastic fee.

The Environment Ministry is advocating for modifications to waste management practices at the municipal and national levels through a legislative amendment.

Greece can reduce its waste by 35% and recycle 90% of its waste by 2040 without resorting to unnecessary investments that undermine the country's progress toward a circular economy, according to a new study by WWF Hellas (the Greek section of the international environmental organization WWF). 

The country is seeing a surge in fires at recycling plants, with 71 incidents reported in the first seven months of this year alone — up to 40 percent more than in previous years, an expert has warned.

Every year, millions of tourists visit the islands of the Cyclades and the Dodecanese, leaving, albeit for a few months, a heavy environmental footprint.

To cope with the inevitably dramatic rise in waste which the small islands have to handle with limited means, space and resources, it is simply buried or baled.

Things to do so as not to waste money and valuable natural resources

The Earth Day environmental movement is calling for 'the end of plastics for the sake of human and planetary health.

Nature wraps bananas and oranges in peels. But in some modern supermarkets, they're bagged or wrapped in plastic too.