Tunisian activist takes up 300- km clean up drive for 30 beaches

Nabeul, Tunisia: Bin bags at the ready, “long- distance activist” Mohamed Oussama Houij moves methodically along a beach in Tunisia’s Mediterranean town of Nabeul, scooping up all kinds of trash as he goes along. The 27- year- old sanitary engineer set out in July to walk a 300- kilometre ( 185- mile) stretch of coastline in northern Tunisia and clean up 30 beaches along the way. He hopes the two- month trek will help convince authorities, holidaymakers and average Tunisians alike that the sea should not be used as a giant garbage tip. With a sturdy pair of boots and a hat to shield him from the summer sun, Houij began his journey in the central coastal city of Mahdia and plans to finish in Solimane, 40 kilometres from the capital Tunis. “I believe in citizen mobilisation and I chose to act... And to raise awareness about the problem of pollution on our beaches,” the activist told us. The Facebook page of his “300 Kilometres” campaign has more than 13,000 followers and is entirely independent, he boasted. “No political party is welcome... 300 Kilometres is a free citizen initiative and will remain forever,” the activist wrote on the page. But while Houij may be a dreamer, he is also realistic. “The 300 Kilometres action is not really about cleaning... I know I’m just a drop of water in the ocean,” he said. “I want to raise public awareness and get people thinking: ‘ Wait, it’s not normal, all these bottles, these caps... All these plastic bags’.” Since Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, the proliferation of waste has steadily worsened across the country — in big cities, rural areas and beaches alike. One contributing factor has been the absence of elected municipal councils. Between the fall in 2011 of longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and local polls held in May 2018, town halls were managed by “special delegations” that often neglected issues like littering and waste management. But there is also a lack of environmental awareness among Tunisians, Environment Minister Riadh Mouakher said in mid- 2017 as he announced the launch of a special “green police” unit to combat the North African country’s rubbish woes.