The seabed of Sozopol has a new face after a large-scale cleaning initiative.

Deputy Minister of Environment and Water Atanas Kostadinov, the Director of the Black Sea Basin Directorate Yavor Dimitrov and the Advisor Petar Dimitrov, together with experts from the Ministry of Environment and Water and the Black Sea Basin Directorate, joined the water cleaning of the port of Sozopol. The initiative was organized by the Institute of Oceanology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and marks the beginning of the summer tourist season.

Prior to this, divers from the Institute of Oceanology conducted a sonar survey of the port bottom, identifying larger waste items, which were subsequently removed from the water with the help of divers and lifted out in containers by a crane. Over 40 divers from the Institute, members of local diving clubs, as well as residents and guests of Sozopol, participated in the cleaning.

Deputy Minister Atanas Kostadinov noted that in 2017, the condition of 45 percent of the 95 declared bathing areas in Bulgaria was determined as "good", while to date 95 percent of them are assessed as being in "very good" condition. He pointed out that this is a result of the funding of over 250 million leva from the Ministry of Environment and Water for the construction of treatment plants over the past 10 years.

Kostadinov emphasized that the issue of environmental cleanliness should not remain just in words, but examples like today's, where numerous waste items from the bottom of the Sozopol port were cleaned up, should be given more often. The goal of the initiative is not only to clean up the marine area, but also to promote marine sciences, protect the marine environment and draw public attention to the importance of joint efforts for the sustainable development of coastal areas.