The Plastic Garbage Project

So there you are, just floating around the pretty, pretty sea in Gouna, being all mermaid-y and whatnot, hoping to make friends with a dolphin, not a care in the world, completely oblivious to the fact that the sea water you're floating in is filled with plastic particles that have probably harmed more dolphins than you can imagine and you've contributed to it, and THAT'S why no dolphins have swum up to you yet and tried to make friends. True story. Well, mostly. According to Darb 1718 and The Plastic Garbage Project, today "not a single cubic meter of seawater is free of plastic particles." That's literally one of the top five worst things we’ve ever heard (closely beating out the news that Miley Cyrus was grinding up on Robin Thicke a few months ago – an image that still haunts us). This essentially means every time we thought we were drifting in clean gorgeous water, it was actually infested with plastic.

But this initiative is doing something to try and remedy that. Out To Sea? The Plastic Garbage Project, is an environmental education project that began in Zurich two years ago with the aim of raising awareness about the hazards of plastic bags in the seas worldwide. The project also encompasses an exhibition entitled 'Out To Sea?' as well as workshops which revolve around this topic. The project has been touring Europe for the past few years and is now heading over to the Middle East, and to our trash-filled, severely environmentally-unfriendly nation in specific, to teach us a thing or two about how to stop ruining our seas. Darb 1718 have been tapped to create the Egyptian version of this exhibition, as well as organising beach and underwater clean-ups, focusing on the Red Sea and the Nile. Now, any Egyptian can tell you that our Nile is comprised of more garbage than water, so this is a much-needed initiative in our country. The exhibition essentially presents collected plastic garbage from the world's seas, piled into a massive heap, thereby illustrating the extent of the ecological damage we as general citizens of humanity, have wreaked on our seas.

The first cleanup the cultural center organised was over Easter break as part of the 3alganoob Music Festival's activities (which also included listening to a lot of Arabic Rock and pooping in bins), and the next one, supported by the Drosos Foundation, will be taking place in Dahab, Sinai on May 21^st and 22^nd. So maybe get off your lazy asses (we're talking to ourselves too) and head over there to help out your country's beaches? While you're at it, we hear Dahab has some excellent hash. So…world-saving garbage man by day, stoner by night?

You can check out their Facebook page here.