On the UN World Environment Day the Embassy and TURMEPA organised a beach cleaning day, with the attendance of the State Secretary Marianne Hagen and Mr. Ambassador Vegard Ellefsen

Ahead of the activity, Ms. Hagen had a comment in Hurriyet Daily Newspaper, where she wrote:

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

[...]

In Norway, due to awareness campaigns, almost 100,000 people joined the annual "clean the ocean days" in May – a high number in a country of 5 million people.

Could such a beach-cleaning campaign be replicated in Turkey and elsewhere? Of course. Today, I will participate in a beach-cleaning activity outside Istanbul, organized by the Turkish Marine Environment Protection Association (TURMEPA).

The contamination of our oceans will affect us all. We have no time to spare. During the time you spent reading this article, another truckload ofplasticsended up in the world's oceans."

The day out was a great success, and many bags of plastic and other litter was removed from the beach outside of Istanbul.

We hope that together we can#BeatPlasticPollution #PlastikkirliliÄŸineson.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ankara.