A war of words has broken out between the mayor of the island of Andros, Theodosis Sousousis, and Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio over the sea pollution in the Cyclades island. Reason is a video uploaded by DiCaprio in which it shows the seabed of the island full of plastic bags and even toilet seats.
“Unfortunately, the style of this posting is unfair for us and gives the impression that the whole island is in this state,” mayor Sousoudis told daily Kathimerini.
However, he acknowledged that this was a “stagnant” case since 2011 when, due to extreme weather conditions, garbage from the landfill that was about 800 meters away fell into the sea. He admitted that when they cleaned the landfill and the beach in 2017, they did not check the seabed.
Di Caprio’s posting was referring to the beach of “Schinias” on Central Andros. The beach is not accessible by land but only by the sea.
Last month, activists of “Aegean Rebreath” uploaded the video after cleaning efforts in the seabed of Schinias beach. The news went viral under the title “Plastic Corals.”
The 44-year-old Hollywood star is heavily engaged in environmental issues, his Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 1988 is devoted to promoting environmental awareness.
Beginning of the month, DiCaprio was spotted on the island of Paros, which he visited on a yacht. It is not clear whether he sailed to nearby Andros as well before heading to Italy.
So this beach (or the seabed opposite) is accessible to toilets seats ONLY BY SEA ?
IF I remember reading correctly somewhere, the landfill was illegal and that’s why it fell into the sea. We are all going to suffer death by plastic. I’m not that old and I don’t remember this much plastic growing up.
What a load of bollocks from the mayor, he either didn’t know about this , which means he is not involved enough or didn’t care, which is more likely, what was being dumped into the sea until it has now been highlighted by someone famous enough to get it noticed by people that may now boycot the island of Andros and cause a problem for their tourist revenue stream…..