For the summer season of 2024, the Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection, chaired by Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Hasnaa, is launching the fifth edition of its #Bharblaplastic operation. This major awareness campaign on ocean pollution and environmental education is part of the 25th season of Clean Beaches, the Foundation’s flagship program, which this year spans 109 beaches, including 27 with Blue Flag certification, as well as 4 marinas and a natural lake.

The coastal municipalities responsible for these beaches are supported in their efforts by the Foundation, the General Directorate of Local Authorities, companies providing material and human resources, and civil society associations. Together, these partners will mobilize for the #Bharblaplastic operation to eliminate and recycle plastic waste from beaches, addressing a pressing global issue.

The Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection is strongly committed to combating this scourge. It has joined the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), with Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Hasnaa designated as Patron of the Decade Alliance for Ocean Science. The #Bharblaplastic initiative has been recognized as a key challenge of this Decade: “Understanding and combating marine pollution.”

The #Bharblaplastic 2024 operation will continue to address the four challenges that have structured it for the past three editions: raising awareness among two million young people about plastic pollution, conducting at least 40,000 environmental awareness actions, reducing plastic waste by at least ten tons per beach, and recycling all collected plastic waste.

This year, a fifth challenge is added: the Blue Partners Network (BPN), which involves economic partners sponsoring socioeconomic initiatives led by local cooperatives. This fifth challenge aims to support the blue economy, promote Blue Jobs, and foster social inclusion of workers whose well-managed activities contribute to environmental protection. The partners, including twenty companies and thirty associations, will provide the cooperatives with multiple forms of support: financial, technical, commercial, and logistical. They will engage in activities with the Foundation such as recycling fishing nets, algae farming, aquaculture, and waste sorting and recycling.

To meet its challenges against plastic pollution, #Bharblaplastic relies on the communities of young people from summer camps and scouts, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Communication and the National Federation of Moroccan Scouting. These young participants engage in workshops on plastic recycling and awareness, discussions and exhibitions on the same theme, algae or artificial reef farming workshops, and painting and coloring activities. Some of these activities are coordinated with about twenty diving associations that conduct underwater clean-up operations on around twenty beaches each summer, and the collected materials serve as a basis for awareness and recycling workshops.

This year, the scope of the Bharblaplastic operation will be significantly expanded at the summer camps. The initiative designed for them, #CampsWithoutPlastic, involves collecting and recycling plastic water bottles used by children in more than 40 summer camp centers, representing approximately 3 million bottles during the summer period.

Finally, given their success in 2023, libraries will once again be installed on program beaches, in addition to digital libraries. Throughout the season, the Foundation will rely on the Hassan II International Center for Environmental Training to offer young people workshops and games, many of which are digital. The Center will also use social media (Facebook and Instagram) and its ANA BOUNDIF app, which is enriched every year to aggregate an ever-growing community, to help reach two million young people.