Plastic pollution and mass migration are two of the most pressing issues in our times. On the Greek island of Samos they are influencing each other in distressing ways. The state of abandonment by the institutions and the resource limitations of the islands led to horrendous conditions in the refugee camp and environmental problems affecting the whole island. What started out as a crisis in 2015 has turned into a long, unending story of suffering.
What was once supposed to be temporary accommodation has turned into a more permanent settlement. The Samos camp opened in early 2016, in a former military base with capacity for 650 people. People are forced to stay in the camp for months, some even years, by the slow and heavily bureaucratic asylum process, and more people still arrive every day. The current population in the camp is, according to the sources (1) (2), at least five times bigger than the camp’s original capacity.
The project came as a result of joining two previous projects from last year – Samos Volunteers and Precious Plastic V4. With the experience they already acquired from these projects, the team members came up with an idea to tackle the humanitarian issues they recognized in Samos with the open-source solutions they have created.
Taking plastic pollution as the starting point, Precious Plastic Samos aims to educate and create awareness on plastic pollution by using the potential of plastic waste as a material and recycling it into functional and valuable items. They do this by following a principle referred to as Precious Plastic.
Plastic pollution is an overarching issue and because of that, they try to address the project to everyone. With an open workspace, they aim to not just have an impact on plastic pollution, but also on the social differences between the refugees and the locals. Both groups are abandoned by the government and left on their own, so by uniting them they hope to create an understanding of each other, overcome resentments and build a community.
The Precious Plastic Samos team is currently travelling from the Netherlands to Samos by van, spreading the word of the project by giving presentations, creating events and gathering tools. They have even set up a gofundme page where you can also consider donating funds for the cause.
Based on the idea of empowerment through creation, Precious Plastic Samos hopes to develop products together with their beneficiaries to suit their very own needs and improve the overall environmental state of Samos. They hope to become a space for different people to solve problems on their own, together.
