As part of the event, the coordination of the Community of Practice for the problem of marine litter in the Dubrovnik-Neretva County was held. Participants had the opportunity to attend three interactive workshops led by representatives of the Laboratory for Intelligent Autonomous Systems of the University of Dubrovnik - LARIAT and the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies of the University of Zagreb - LABUST. Underwater robotics solutions for monitoring the marine environment and collecting waste from the sea were demonstrated, while experts from Lithuania presented a system for monitoring aquaculture products.
The Blue events have been followed by a promotional campaign under the slogan "Start your day with a change", designed as one of the DUNEAs main roles from the MARLESS project, where we try to invoke each individual to think about the selection of products we use in everyday life ("It's only one straw said 8 billion people"). The idea is to raise awareness of the collective responsibility and role of each individual who can try to reduce the carbon footprint and the amount of waste on this planet and thus be an example to children and future generations. The main tool for this action is an art video and specific promotional material that we distribute further to the people, offering concrete solutions of sustainable products in everyday human activitie.
Targeted audience was Community of practice for marine litter problematics of Dubrovnik Neretva County area, 20 members, from public bodies, municipalities, port authorities, to environmental NGOs. The CoP is a "living body" and anybody can become a member, or leave the membership at any point. This group of people serves as a basis for all project dissemination activities, through which the results can be disseminated even further (using their institutional website canals, municipal protocols, etc.). We are looking forward to growing the community with participants from various sectors. Currently, the majority of the members belong to relevant county institutions and decision-makers. CoP coordinator, from DUNEA, is Ms. Pavica Peruško, who makes sure that the members are informed of the project results and progress altogether. By now we had 2 Regional info days - we like to call them Blue events and we collaborated with 3 EU projects with the same or similar thematic, to make sure that the events are interesting and that we will reach the widest possible dissemination. At the 2nd Blue Event, altogether approx. 35 people participated from different countries, the majority from Croatia and Italy, from decision-makers, and scientists, to the business sector, all under blue growth topic.
