Aspon Consulting is the Lead Partner of a project titled “Reducing the Consumption and Disposal of Single-use Plastics (SUP) in the Tourism Industry in Cyprus, Greece and Malta”, most commonly refered to as SUPMed. The SUPMed project aims to reduce the consumption, disposal and impacts of SUP in the tourism sector in three regions, in line with EU Directive 2019/904 on the reduction of the impacts of plastic products.

The project was launched in July 2020 and runs until June 2023, with a budget of €1,279,405.00. The six project partners will support samples of coastal tourist establishments in Cyprus, Malta and Greece via pilots to move to sustainable resource-efficient business models that will identify and replace commonly used SUP with environmentally friendlier, readily available and affordable alternatives. The pilot samples will be supported in phasing out and replacing SUP via a bespoke free web-based decision-support tool (DST) that will be developed. The DST will present viable and available alternatives to the most commonly used SUP, taking into consideration the cost and environmental impacts of each alternative across its life-cycle.

Following the completion of the pilot in each of the three regions, best practise guides will be developed that will present the findings of the pilots, the impacts of plastic waste on human health and the environment, how to reduce SUP in the tourism and other sectors and what envirionmentally friendlier and affordable alternatives are available. These guides will be disseminated to SMEs, NGOs, tourist establishments and other relevant stakeholders across Europe, as an additional support tool in replacing SUPs.

The partners involved in the project are Aspon Consulting Ltd as the Lead Partner (CY), Heraklion Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GR), Anelixis Development Consultants S.A. (GR), Cellock Ltd (CY), AIS Environment (MT) and the Cyprus Hotel Association (CY).