The big amount of rubbish of human origin in the sea and on the shore is an alarming phenomenon for its contaminating effects on the environment. This problems is particularly evident in the months in which the coast is not used for bathing purposes and in those areas believed of marginal importance for marine tourism, because the shore-cleaning operations are considered unprofitable and committed only to private beach clubs. Public interventions are often limited to free beaches and only in the period of major tourist presence. In the rest of the year the coast is a no-man’s land, doomed by negligence and superficiality to be a “dumping area” of our modern civilization, waiting for cleaning up initiatives by groups of volunteers, to such an extent that plastic wastes has become part of coastal landscape now.
It often happens to those who still dare fighting against the invasion of trash, expression of a society more and more indifferent to the value and respect of the creation, to pull a cane blade out of a piece of polystyrene through which it had made its way to the light or to take off a plastic bottle from a cliff to which it was merged by heat and atmosphere pressure: fossils of an age called Anthropocene. Unfortunately, if these forms of assimilation of plastic debris can give an idea of balance in the creation and relax the consciences of those who do nothing to solve out this problem but lamenting it, it is widely proved how plastic is dangerous to ecosystems and man, especially when abandoned in the environment or misused, due to its very low biodegradability rate (even 1.000 years!), the toxicity of its chemical components and the damage that it could cause to animals if they swallow it. For example, dolphins, sperm whales, seabirds and turtles often swallow plastic bags which resemble cephalopods (squid, octopus, etc.) in water, as it is proved by examinations on stranded individuals. Also the cigarette ends are noxious to the marine ecosystem because they kill the fish that accidentally eat them. For that reason the Association Marevivo has launched the campaign “isn’t the sea worth a damn?” just to fight the malpractice to stub off and leave cigarette ends on the beach. Who cleans up the shore by hand (hand cleaning is less detrimental than mechanical one on the fragile marine ecosystems) can notice the large number of lollipop sticks and fish boxes’ pieces of polystyrene left adrift by fishermen, involuntarily or on purpose. Fishermen used wicker baskets before the polystyrene was considered more hygienic. Are we sure that it is true?
We call for the intervention of international organizations to strongly limit the production of plastic objects, as it has already happened with plastic bags, to restrain the pollution of the Earth which, we should never forget, is covered for 70% of its surface by oceans, seas and lakes.
See also the post “Rubbish, a matter of civilization“