Press release
Portuguese Association of Marine Garbage proposes National Beach Cleaning Day APLM, September 8, 2015
The Portuguese Association of Marine Waste (APLM) invites all citizens, institutions and organizations to participate in the launch of the National Beach Cleaning Day, which this year will take place on September 19, 2015. The cleaning action that APLM is organizing will take place at Praia do Torrão, Trafaria, on the 19th of September 2015 at 10:30 am.
The collaboration of everyone will make the beaches of Portuguese women increasingly cleaner. The Portuguese Association of Marine Waste (APLM), together with its partners, hereby proposes and announces an annual date for the National Beach Cleaning Day. This day in which citizens of all ages and governmental, non-governmental organizations and all kinds of institutions will come together to jointly collect marine litter present on Portuguese beaches, in order to minimize this serious environmental problem.
The National Beach Cleaning Day will take place annually, on the third Saturday of September. The reason for choosing this date is related to a worldwide beach cleanup campaign led by one of our international partners, the American non-governmental organization Ocean Conservancy , which organizes a global beach cleanup on the same date. This international union of efforts will allow the collection of marine litter at this time to serve for the creation of a worldwide database, which includes data from Portugal in a consistent and systematic way over time. The cleaning action that APLM is organizing will take place at Praia do Torrão, Trafaria, on September 19, 2015 at 10:30 am.
APLM will organize annually on the third Saturday of September, a campaign entitled Equinox Cleaning, to mark the National Beach Cleaning Day. This action, through the contribution of everyone, will allow us to ascertain the state of our beaches right after the summer.
Millions of tons of garbage reach the ocean every year and marine debris is a growing global problem that threatens both the marine environment and man. It is urgent to make society aware of this problem, as well as to regulate and manage our marine environment in a more sustainable way. APLM's mission is to defend and conserve the environment against the impacts of marine litter. It was born in academia following the work carried out in this area by a team of researchers from MARE, at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and appears in the national context as a platform that gathers will to fight and reduce marine litter. For more information you can visit www.aplixomarinho.org or contact us at ap.lixomarinho@gmail.com.