The Environmental Practices of Greece's Islands

 Hey fellow anthropologists!

    I wanted to talk about some of the environmentally friendly practices on the islands in Greece. Over the past couple of months, I have been lucky enough to travel to the islands of Ios and Naxos, and I noticed many different sustainable practices. 

    One of the most notable would be the use of windmills for energy in Greece. On both islands, there were several different windmills built on top of mountains. According to my parents, who traveled to Ios over 20 years ago, the island of Ios did not have windmills at all. This means that this is a fairly new practice on the Greek Islands. It is great to see that these small islands, with very few local residents, are using environmentally friendly energy sources. 

The use of one wind turbine, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), can produce enough energy to power close to 1000 U.S. homes. For these islands, this is a great alternative to using nonrenewable resources that would otherwise be very difficult to transport. 

The reason for the addition of these wind turbines is likely due to societies' environmental impacts, but also because logistically this is one of the most efficient energy sources. Therefore, the location of islands plays a role in adding these turbines, but I believe that the culture within these islands also motivates this movement. That Greece's proximity to the water and its proximity to the natural mountainous regions within these islands are factors that influence the culture within Greek society. 

                                                                             A terribly taken photo of nearly 8 wind turbines on                                                                                     a mountain in Naxos, Greece. :)

 

                                                                                                                                       

   

I also want to talk about some of the environmental struggles that people on the islands face. On the islands like, Ios and Naxos, tourists and locals usually drink bottled water. The normal running water on the islands tends to have a strange taste and is not entirely suitable for drinking; however, the water is safe to drink. While my family and I stayed on the islands we tried our best to recycle. We in fact came up with a strategy to throwing away our plastic bottles. We would crush the bottles down and place them in, unfortunately, plastic bags. We crushed the bottles so they would be as flat as possible. The flatter they were the more we could fit in the bags; this was our attempt to reduce our plastic usage when we were forced to use plastic products. The islands use plastic water bottles; however, there are many recycling trash bins within the chora (plaza) area of the islands and throughout the island. To add on to that, on the beaches there were several different trash bins to dispose of all sorts of waste.

I can't help but wonder if the reason that these islands have a greater number of environmentally friendly practices than other places near my home is likely due to the destinations proximity to the water. If the waste produced is not thrown away properly, the trash will end up in the sea. Which in turn, damages Greece's beautiful beaches and seas. I think that this likely instills a desire within Greek people and Greek culture to maintain the natural beauty of the country.

A photo showing the different trash bins on the beach. The other two photos show the plastic bottles we crushed to make transporting the bottles to the recycling bins easier and so we would use fewer plastic bags.