This year’s Project AWARE International Cleanup Day was celebrated in style in El Gouna on 27th September 2009. Dive centres, hotels, tour operators and their guests, plus a host of other individuals and organizations, joined together to maximize the effect of the Cleanup operation in a tremendous team effort that focused on the reefs of Shaab El Erg and Dolphin House.

Over 80 participants collected an incredible 300KG of rubbish from these popular diving and snorkeling sites. The rubbish consisted mostly of the usual tin cans, fishing lines, glass and porcelain, but there were also some more unusual finds including a bed, a pair of ray ban sunglasses and a large carpet. It’s amazing what you can discover underwater!

HEPCA also joined in the day’s activities by bringing forward the planned maintenance of the mooring systems at Shaab El Erg and the surrounding dive sites to coincide with the Cleanup Day. Many ropes and buoys were replaced and a new mooring system installed.

Massive thanks to everyone who took part in the event and the coordinators, including TGI Divers, Orca Dive Club, Tropical Gangsters Dive Club, Oototo, Makadi Tours, and the Sultan Bey Hotel’s environmental team.

Pictures of the event can be seen at
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=141670&id=665383254&l=f7b06e8bb9

Elsewhere in El Gouna, Dive Tribe organized a full program of educational activities for their guests and a reef clean up, as did Euro Divers. As well as underwater, other cleanup activities were arranged on land including a 2KM stretch of El Gouna’s northern beaches carried out by environmental teams from the Steigenberger Golf Resort, TTC Ocean View, and TTC Rihana in cooperation with Orascom staff. In total, 550 bags of rubbish were collected.

The Mövenpick Resort & Spa had a different idea (also World Tourism Day) and took the opportunity to invite children from the Hurghada Orphanage to spend the day at the resort and entertained them with face painting, games and plenty of ice cream to put smiles on their faces.

Well done to our Members and everyone in El Gouna!

Euro Divers organised a simultaneous beach and underwater clean up at their two dive centres in Club Med El Gouna and Grand Hotel Hurghada. Around 50 guests and staff joined in the event at each location and helped to clean up El Sawa and Magawish dive sites removing over 200KG of debris.

Blue O Two celebrated Project AWARE International Cleanup Day by encouraging guests to participate in reef cleanups on all three of their vessels. M/Y blue Horizon visited one of Hurghada’s top spots, "The Aquarium" or Gota Abu Ramada East. Approximately 10KG of rubbish was collected between 20 participants including fishing line, electric tape, nets, newspaper, clothes, cable ties, a broken mask and fin straps.

M/Y blue Fin visited "The Barge" by Small Gubal Island, collecting 30-40KGS of rubbish between 20 divers. M/Y blue Melody had 16 divers taking part in the reef cleanup at Abu Hashish and approximately 5-10 kgs of rubbish was brought out of the water.

Thank you everyone for taking part and well done!

HEPCA is pleased to announce the success of the campaign to make the Red Sea the first plastic bag free governorate in Egypt. Following the decree issued earlier this year by HE General Magdi Kubeissi, Governor of the Red Sea, the ban on plastic bags has been overwhelmingly supported by businesses and individuals throughout the region. This is a great accomplishment of which we can all be proud.

Paper bags are currently being supplied by the large majority of retailers including supermarkets, restaurants and other businesses. Paper has a significantly lower impact on the environment than plastic but we need to minimise the use of ALL bags.

By far the most environmentally friendly solution is for bag users to REUSE existing bags, and switch to cloth bags where possible. So far HEPCA has distributed 50,000 cloth bags for free in the Red Sea area to support the decree.

HEPCA would like to thank everyone who has contributed in support of this campaign. Special thanks are due to HE the Governor and all our partners and sponsors including Egyptian Resorts Company (Developer of Sahl Hasheesh) and Barclays Bank. In addition, HEPCA would like to thank those working in the vocational training centres in Hurghada, Safaga and Ras Gharib, where many additional job opportunities were created for women manufacturing the cloth bags for this campaign.

Please continue to support this campaign and add pressure to those who do not comply with the ban. Each and every one of us has a responsibility to help keep the Red Sea plastic bag free.

HEPCA divers have completed a pioneering mooring project in Aqaba, Jordan in association with leading marine conservation organization, The Regional Organization for the Conservation of the Environment of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden (PERSGA).

PERGSA commissioned HEPCA, in cooperation with the Marine Parks Authority of Aqaba, to install a mooring system that covers more than 26 dive spots in the region. The project also encompasses a zoning system for swimmers and watercraft.

HEPCA is extremely proud to have been chosen by PERSGA as the implementing partner for this highly significant project, which aims to spread a best practice mooring culture throughout the entire Red Sea region. Find out more about our work in Jordan in our Projects section.