Aero-guarded beaches: when drones and rescue teams working together

This summer, Blue Flag in Spain implemented rescue drones as an extra equipment for lifeguards on 6 Blue Flag beaches

The Blue Flag Spanish National Operator (ADEAC) has been working with a drone company to show how the latter can be useful for lifeguards. The project was held on 6 Spanish municipalities with Blue Flag awarded sites: Santa Eularia, Ciutadella, Sagunto, Fuengirola, Cheles y Orellana. This equipment can also be useful for sewage control and monitoring.

The rescue drones have been implemented during one week on the selected Blue Flag beaches. This initiative showed how drones can help reinforcing the beach safety thanks to their minimum response time and reliability. These pilot tests aimed to highlight the benefits for lifeguards regarding security’s improvement on the beaches and thus create a model that could be spread out.

Indeed, these drones combine surveillance, rescue and search skills. They can be helpful for the lifeguards regarding the monitoring of the beach in real time, determining the victims or dangerous animals’ position in the sea as well as controlling rush hours. This search and rescue drone has been designed to fit a beach’s harsh conditions (level 6 winds, rain, sand and saline environments).

This pioneering initiative from the Spanish Blue Flag National Operator illustrates how technological innovation can be useful for both holiday-makers and lifeguards at the beach. This experiment could be the beginning of new standards as an example to the rest of the world’s beaches.

Take Care of Your Beach Project in Turkey

“You’re mortal but your waste is not” – last August, TURCEV (the Blue Flag National Operator in Turkey) spread a powerful message on one of its Blue Flag beaches

©Kusadasi Municipality

By the end of August, Take Care of Your Beach Project aimed to raise beach users’ awareness among beach cleanliness in Turkey. Coordinated by the National Blue Flag Operator (TURCEV) with the help of Kusadasi Municipality and Aydin Metropolitan Municipality, the initiative took place on Kadinlar Denizi beach, also called “Ladies Beach”. Volunteer university students from different universities in Turkey took part to this 4-day awareness project held on this Blue Flag beach. From kids to adults, it was the opportunity to highlight how everyone plays a key role in the coasts’ cleanliness.

“Here we see some children playing with cigarette butts with no awareness about their harm and we tried to change this sad situation during this week. I hope we won’t see this anymore” – Deniz Cansu Ogul, Middle East Technical University, Environmental Eng. Dep.”

©Kusadasi Municipality

 For the occasion, several activities such as cigarette butt collection contests, interviews and questionnaires with beach users, and beach cleanliness level measurements have been presented by the volunteers. From kids to adults by way of volunteers, all of the participants became more conscious of their impact on the cleanliness of the beaches and will now be environmental ambassadors spreading environmentally-friendly practices. Nevertheless, the public only became motivated thanks to volunteers’ tenacity to inform and insist on taking actions to protect the environment.   

““With this project, I realized that I also changed a lot, realising people can also change their minds with simple motivating actions. Thank you to all the people organising this powerful activity for all” – Berk Ozkizikli, Hacettepe University, Faculty of Medicine.”

©Kusadasi Municipality

TURCEV and the municipalities have held this project every year at different Blue Flag beaches since 2010. This is a good example of the work done by the Blue Flag National Operators in spreading of environmentally-friendly practices and raising the public’s awareness.

Mexican beach achieving a Blue Flag perfect rating reiterate its award

Tangolunda Dream Beach, Mexico, obtained a 100% compliance rating in the 33 imperative and guideline Blue Flag criterion for the season 2018-2019.

Managed by Dreams Huatulco Resort & Spa, the beach was one of the 54 beaches recognized by Blue Flag in Mexico for the 2018-2019 season. This beach achieved this perfect rating regarding Blue Flag imperative and guideline criterion thanks to the Resort’s commitment for the conservation of environment.

The Resort launched a “sustainable schools” programme in local schools to educate children to sustainable development revolving around water, energy, waste, biodiversity, culture and health education. For instance, the activity implemented during the past school year was linked to local sustainable agents. While one group of kids was monitoring the energy consumption of its house and school in order to implement savings solutions, another one was carrying out activities about environmental protection. It helped raising children’s awareness about wind power while involving the hotel staff, teachers, parents and kids.

Moreover, Dreams Huatulco Resort & Spa did a theoretical estimation of carbon dioxide equivalent per host. Based on the number of guests in each country, they calculated the CO2 produced by a plane regarding guests’ living country and Huatulco. 

Tangolunda Dream Beach is surrounded by lush jungle, soaring mountains and dazzling coral reefs that need to be protected. It is also the home of sea turtles which hatch seasonally from July through December. Protecting this beach also go through the protection of this sea turtle population and the guarantee that the babies take their first steps towards their home in the ocean.

The Resort’s work illustrates how sustainability encompasses the economic, the social and the environmental. Tangolunda Dream Beach is an example of a great commitment to preserve our oceans.

Tidy up cigarette butts with #FillTheBottle challenge

This challenge has spread to the Blue Flag French beaches.

The idea is simple: you collect the cigarette butts that you find in nature and fill a bottle with them. This challenge initiated at the beginning of August by a French student on Twitter immediately went viral on social media and became an international concern. The “Fill the bottle challenge” requests citizens’ involvement to preserve the environment and raises awareness about cigarette butts’ impact on our ecosystem.

Since August, 6th, The French city of Torreilles encourages residents and tourists to take up the challenge. The city is part of the second French region with the most Blue Flag awarded sites, a region where other Blue Flag beaches launched the challenge too.

Each second, 137 000 cigarette butts are thrown out on the ground worldwide. Even though we know that they take between 12 and 25 years to decompose, several thousands of cigarette butts end up in seas and oceans each year. Thus undersea species are endangered by people discarding their cigarettes without a second thought, given that one and only cigarette butt can pollute 5000 litres of water.

The results of the challenge are impressive, but it is bittersweet as cigarette butts are the most littered item around the world. You should be surprised by how many never get collected. Unfortunately, you can gather them for a few minutes and you will be sure your bottle will be full. This is why the most important message is to educate the smokers to dispose of their cigarette butts in an environmentally safe way. Blue Flag and the city of Torreilles are also working towards this education, for a longer sustainable impact on the future.

The #FillTheBottle challenge taking place in Torreilles is such a good action to preserve the environment. Nevertheless, people have to make sure that they don’t throw away the bottle the same way the cigarette butts have been tossed out! That is why they are all collected by the tourism office in exchange for a hat of the city.

By taking up the challenge, the city of Torreilles proves its engagement for the planet and gives an example of an action preserving beaches, seas and oceans from pollution. This is another guarantee to find Blue Flag beaches clean!