Middle school students in southern Antalya province are learning a valuable lesson about environmental awareness by cleaning up Turkey's world-famous Konyaaltı Beach in Antalya as part of the "Clean Up the Med" campaign.

Izzet Ünlü, the president of the Clean Ocean Association's Antalya branch, said the campaign was organized as part of the Erasmus Project of the Martyr Kadir Can Secondary School in Antalya's Kepez district.

Ünlü noted that the project aims to collect trash and other pollutants along the coastline of Konyaaltı Beach and Antalya Setur Marina within the framework of the environmentally conscious project. He added that they collected garbage carelessly thrown on the shores.

"The Turkish leg of the project, which aims to bring the sea pollution in the Mediterranean to the agenda and draw attention to the factors causing pollution, is being undertaken by the Clean Sea Association/TURMEPA. The easiest way to clean the sea is to teach people not to pollute it. Where there is a sea, there is life," he said.

Ünlü pointed out Antalya's importance as a tourism hotspot and added that: "If the sea becomes polluted, tourism ends. We must act with the awareness to protect our seas. All our citizens and nongovernmental organizations should contribute to the protection of the seas."