The international and local project team visited different sites in Alexandria as the suggested local pilot area in Egypt on 6th November 2021. These sites are hotels, hotel private beach, free entry public beach, paid-ticket public beach, touristic historical castle on the Mitterrandian, on-coast touristic restaurant. During the visit, the team met the manging teams for these sites and discussed with them the waste management system specially the plastic waste including collection and sorting mechanism.

Physical kick-off meeting in Alexandria, Egypt on 7th November 2021

Different local Egyptian partners and stakeholders were invited to Physical kick-off meeting in Alexandria, Egypt. It was held in the main hall in AASTMT campus on 7th November 2021. The kick-off meeting was open by a welcome speech by the scientific and cultural representative at the German embassy in Cairo. The international project team introduced presentations about the project objectives, tasks and outcomes. The local project team gave presentation about the local activities of the project. Different local partners and stakeholders gave presentations about different activities and efforts related to waste management and plastic waste collection, sorting and recycling in general and also in the tourism sector specially on the beach and hotels. The local partners participated in the Kick-off meeting as presenters are the Ministry of environment, Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), local regonal office of EEAA in Alexadria, local authority for Alexandria governrate (beach mangement sector), Ministry of Tourism – Alexandria office,  Ministry of local developement, Minstry of industry (Plastic Technology Center), NGOs. The attendance included members from the Egyptian parliament and senates, academic institutions, education institutions, local communities and NGOs.

All the participants and attendees from different local partners, institutions and stakeholders agreed with the international and local project team about  the importance of the project objectives to develop a sustainable tourism sector with less impact on the marine environment. The consistency with the local and global sustainable development goals (SDGs) is one of the main motivations which encourage these different stakeholders to attend and show their interest to participate in different tasks during the project implementation.