(TAP) -Tinja, a small city located on Ichkeul lake, Bizerte (northern Tunisia) joined the Plastic Smart Cities initiative to become the first city in the country to commit to combating plastic pollution in nature.

A cooperation agreement was signed to this end on August 1 by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF Tunisia), the municipality of Tinja and the Junior Chamber International

(JCI Menzel Bourguiba), as a local partner, the WWF said.

With the strategic location of this city which gives access to the middle basin through Ichkeul Lake, the goal of the agreement is to prevent further plastic pollution in the Mediterranean Sea until 2030, a year seen as critical for the environment.

The city signing up to the initiative comes as a response to the imminent threat of plastic and in a bid to help break the vicious cycle of unconscious consumption, JCI Menzel Bourguiba said.

Over 5 trillion pieces of plastic are already floating in the oceans, almost a million plastic bottles are sold every minute and nearly every seabird on the planet will eat plastic by 2030, the same sources said.

Plastic Smart Cities is a global intiative bringing together cities and tourist destinations that commit to the fight against plastic pollution. It helps cities set tangible commitments and share good practices.

Tunisia discharges 0.08 million tonnes of plastic waste in nature, i.e, 20% of plastic waste thrown in the Mediterranean.

Source: TAP News Agency