DiCaprio’s pollution post ‘unfair,’ says Andros mayor

The mayor of the Aegean island of Andros has told Kathimerini that a disparaging post about waste on the island’s seabed by Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio was “unfair.”

“Unfortunately, the style of the post is unfair to us and gives the impression that the whole island is in this state,” Theodosis Sousoudis said on Tuesday.

However, he acknowledged that the problem has existed since 2011, when “extreme weather pushed waste from a landfill 800 meters from the coast” into the sea.

“Andros is very clean, the beaches are very clean, and we have seen a huge increase in tourism over the last three years,” he told One TV.

DiCaprio had posted a video of volunteers collecting waste from the seabed at Schinias beach along with the comment:

“Plastic bags and toilet seats. Hundreds of discarded fishing nets. All of this was stuck to the seabed of Greece’s Andros island. Volunteers collected over 660lbs [272 kilograms] of plastic waste. But some say the microplastics leave an invisible imprint on the environment and even ourselves. They can be consumed by fish that then become a part of our diet.”