Opatija provokes a longing for times past. Opatija could actually exist without people because in its perfect depictions, there are no people living there, only those famous ones who once visited it. From these memories it is worth moving onto the subject of the consequences of the tourist-consumer industrial invasion, specifically – the ecological disposal of rubbish and waste in tourism.
Opatija has the longest experience of tourism in Croatia, and it is here that the knowledge and experiences of those “invisible people” who keep this town in the same pristine and at first glance preserved condition are stored.
Opatija is the centre of the history and culture of tourism and this why the people of Opatija, who grew up in this culture, realising the threat, also pose the question about the future, of an ecological future without waste in the only remaining Croatia economic industry – tourism.
The OKiZA – Opatija’s culture and green activism programme, the initiative of the Žmergo Association, creates a platform of artistic ideas reflecting the very subject of waste. The OKiZA programme has been conceived as an international art contest at which an expert jury, the public and the community select several artistic works which are realised in 2020 in the town of Opatija. The actions and activities of the Žmergo Association practically mean the actions of the afforestation of Učka called Budi BUKVAlan (“Be literal/a tree”). An expansion of the afforestation action is an exhibition of photographs and the interactive cartography of the cadastre of the planted beech trees in 2019 in Opatija’s Klub 60+. Do not miss Opatija under the snow at the exhibition. The subject of No Waste in Tourism runs through an international public forum which also includes a European neighbourhood of Opatija the city of Vienna and its extremely successful ÖkoKaufen Wien programme.