"Clean is Beautiful - Ohrid Selects" – Great Interest and Excellent Attendance at the Pop-Up Event
The city square in Ohrid was filled with music, positive energy, and children's laughter yesterday, as hundreds of citizens joined the pop-up event "Clean is Beautiful - Ohrid Selects," organized by PE "Ohridski Komunalec" and the Municipality of Ohrid with support from Sweden through SALAR International.
The event was part of the preparatory activities for a major waste selection initiative in the tourism and catering sectors.
The goal of the event was to bring the process of waste selection and proper waste handling closer to citizens and visitors of Ohrid in a fun, interactive, and practical way. Several educational stations allowed participants to learn through games—from guessing how long different materials take to decompose, to "waste basketball" and "recycling bingo," activities that sparked great interest among both children and adults.
Teachers and students from several primary schools, who are part of the educational program of the project "Sustainable Waste Management at the Local Level" implemented by SALAR International, actively led the games and encouraged citizens to participate. Red Cross volunteers, representatives from PE "Ohridski Komunalec," and the Municipality of Ohrid shared useful tips for proper selection and distributed informative materials.
"We are very pleased with the response. Citizens showed sincere interest, and the youngest demonstrated that selection habits can be learned quickly and easily when the process is presented in an understandable and fun way," the organizers stated. They added that today's event is further confirmation that Ohrid has the will and potential to become an example of sustainable waste management and shared care for nature.
The event is part of the broader campaign "Clean is Beautiful - Select," which represents a new platform for cooperation between institutions, hotels, catering facilities, markets, tourists, citizens, and civil society organizations, with one common goal: a cleaner and more beautiful Ohrid.
The initiative began with a group of nine pilot partners, including the hotels "Tourist," "Bellevue," "Metropol," "Congress Center," "Belvedere," "Pela," "Tino – St. Stefan," "Granit," "Garden," the "Ramstore" market, as well as primary and secondary schools as part of the "Schools Without Plastic" program. In the following months, the Municipality of Ohrid and PE "Ohridski Komunalec" will expand the partner network so that by the start of the 2026 tourist season, a significant part of the city will be fully prepared with established systems for proper waste management. At the same time, educational and informative activities within the campaign will continue in the coming months with new educational content, training, and practical tools for citizens and the business community.
The organizers express their gratitude to all citizens who participated in the event and helped spread the message that a clean city is a beautiful city.