A Greek battle for new age: plastic trash

LEGRENA, Greece — Dressed all in black and preparing his diving gear with loud zips and clicks, George Sarelakos looks like he’s part of a Greek naval operation ready to storm an island or take down smugglers.

He’s not — but he and four other volunteer divers do have a challenging mission: Clearing the plastic trash from the sea floor that’s suffocating Greece’s marine life.

In a heavy rain, they struggle to clamber off the rocks along a stretch of coast south of Athens favored by day-trippers looking for a nice place to swim within driving distance of the Greek capital.

“Most beaches are clean because they’re tidied up by municipalities. But the big problem is on the seabed. It’s is like a garbage dump,” Sarelakos said.

In January, the European Union launched a major campaign to reduce plastic waste across its 28 member states.

Greece starts the 12-year program with major disadvantages: an alarming rate of single-use plastic consumption, a waste management system largely neglected during a decadelong financial crisis and a considerable coastline.

Within an hour, Sarelakos and his rubber-suited companions bring up large clumps of garbage, mostly old tires, tied into bundles with rope. A curious dolphin inspects their work before darting off to a nearby fish farm.

“All this is death for sea life. It’s a problem that most people are totally unaware of,” Sarelakos says.

In a 2015 study, researchers trawled five coastal areas in the eastern Mediterranean and found that 60 percent of the marine litter detected was in the Saronic Gulf bordering greater Athens.

And 95 percent of that trash was plastic, much of it single-use items like carrier bags or water and soda bottles.

The EU plans to make all plastic packaging on the market recyclable by 2030 and wants member states to crack down on single-use plastic, with consumers using no more than 40 plastic bags annually by 2025.

A few countries already have zoomed past that target: Finns on average use just four plastic bags a year. But for Greeks — now accustomed to sipping coffee out of plastic cups using plastic straws and with kiosk beverage coolers within easy reach of every city dweller — it’s become part of the lifestyle.

They use 296 bags per year, according to the EU Commission.

Local surveys suggest the number is even higher.

Stores began charging for plastic bags Jan. 1 — a relatively small step for a country still heavily reliant on coal-fired power plants and which is regularly fined for its large number of unregulated garbage dumps.

Only 16 percent of trash is recycled here, compared with the EU’s average of 44 percent. Nearly everything else ends up buried in trash dumps.

According to pollution activists, Greeks are largely unaware of the plastic problem because most of the pollution is not visible.

THANASSIS STAVRAKIS/AP A crane lifts tires above the surface as a volunteer diver gives directions in the ocean about 40 miles from Athens.