Precious Plastic Georgia Founder on Tbilisi Sea Cleaning Day & Future Plans
INTERVIEW
Environmental protection is among the most challenging issues in the world today, and we often find ourselves too “busy” with our work or leisure time to remember to protect our only home, the Earth.
Luckily, the number of environmental activists and eco-friendly companies is on the up, giving hope that this global problem can be solved through joint efforts and by raising public awareness about the complexity of the issue.
With this in mind, on Sunday, July 19, Tbilisi Sea Cleaning Day was held, organized by Precious Plastic Georgia, new eco and zero waste movement ‘Parki ar minda,’ the Tbilisi skateboarding school Rampa.ge, and pet-friendly Sololaki bar Valiko Mansion.
The event, aimed at clearing the area from rubbish and also encouraging others to clean and protect it in the future, brought together environmental activists and ordinary citizens wanting to clean and protect their city from pollution.
Attendees were given some nice surprises from the organizers, got to meet many like-minded people, and spent a memorable time in beautiful nature in parallel with environment-friendly activities.
GEORGIA TODAY spoke to one of the organizers of the event, Yuliya Kuzina, founder of Precious Plastic Georgia, who elaborated on the results and importance of the event, and the company’s future plans in this direction.
“The event was the initiative of our non-commercial voluntary group, Precious Plastic Georgia,” Kuzina tells us. “We collected and sorted over 50 bags of trash today. Recyclable items (glass, plastic bottles and aluminum) went into recycling bins around Tbilisi, and non-recyclable rubbish was picked up by the city's cleaning service. The participants did a great job helping to set up the event, clean and sort, and we all enjoyed ourselves in the clean area afterwards.
“The importance of such activities is pretty obvious. Our planet is experiencing such catastrophic trends as climate change, plastic pollution, and modern slavery. We want to make our contribution to tackling the plastic problem. We collected 3kg of plastic caps (label 2 HDPE) and sorted them separately, so we can recycle them ourselves into beautiful street furniture.”
How did you come up with this initiative? Are you planning to organize similar events in the future?
We are very worried about the level of pollution in Georgia overall, and Tbilisi Sea in particular. Rubbish dumping is happening on a regular basis, so it is no longer pleasant to be around the Sea. We’re going to keep cleaning it and making an impact for as long as we can, and as long as we have the right support. We are planning to do a full weekend clean up event in the Sea area in September.
Tell us about Precious Plastic.
We are a group of specialists in the areas of engineering, architecture, and sustainable development, amongst others. We collect plastic labels 2, 4 and 5, and we recycle it ourselves. We started this project just six months ago, so we’re still exploring possibilities to contribute.
We started installing collection bins in businesses (cafes, restaurants, offices) and promoting our initiative among locals. With this project we aim to minimize the amount of plastic that has the potential to be recycled sitting in landfills for the next few hundred years. Instead, we want that precious plastic to have a second life as street furniture. We would be happy to connect with any business or individuals and help them to be a little more sustainable.
By Ana Dumbadze