The mouth of the Sarno is submerged in plastic, Greenpeace's report
Environment — di Lorenzo Brenna
As part of the MayDaySOSPlastica tour, Greenpeace found a “shocking” scene near the mouth of the River Sarno, in Campania.
The mouth of the Sarno is submerged in plastic, Greenpeace's report
As part of the MayDaySOSPlastica tour, Greenpeace found a “shocking” scene near the mouth of the River Sarno, in Campania.
Don't shoot the messenger, but the vast majority of the plastic that ends up in the seas and oceans of our planet arrives via rivers. A study published in 2017 revealed that of the 4 million tonnes of plastic transported from rivers to the sea each year, up to 95 per cent comes from just ten rivers. Watercourses are also responsible for introducing 80 per cent of microplastics into seas around the world. This phenomenon has been confirmed by Greenpeace which, as part of the MayDaySOSPlastica tour in collaboration with Castalia, has documented the alarming plastic pollution afflicting the marine area near the mouth of the River Sarno, in Campania.
A shocking scene
The environmental organisation's findings highlighted the environmental devastation of the area adjacent to the river mouth, strewn with plastic waste of every kind, including bottles, flasks, cups, bags, food packaging, containers and single-use plastic packaging. "A shocking scene with enormous quantities of waste invading the beach and the seabed, the inevitable product of a consumption model based on the use of large quantities of single-use plastic," said Giuseppe Ungherese, head of Greenpeace Italia's Pollution campaign, with evident bitterness. "As if that weren't enough, we must remember that what has been documented is only the visible part of the problem — rivers can also carry large quantities of microplastics into the sea that are not detectable at first glance."
The aim of MayDaySOSPlastica
The MayDaySOSPlastica tour, launched by Greenpeace Italia in collaboration with The blue dream project, an NGO dedicated to protecting the marine environment from plastic pollution, was created with the express aim of protecting the sea from this insidious waste and "responding to the alarm sounded by the sea and its creatures," as Greenpeace's press release states. The two organisations, together with researchers, biologists and video makers, are conducting a research expedition in the Central Tyrrhenian Sea aboard the vessel Mahayana to monitor the impact of plastic pollution on Italian seas. The tour set off on 21 May and will conclude on 8 June, to coincide with World Ocean Day, at the Argentario.
Discover LifeGate PlasticLess, a sea of ideas against an ocean of plastic
The island that exists
The expedition's mission is to highlight the presence of "an island that exists but cannot be seen," made up of micro and macro plastics accumulated by ocean currents. Plastic represents one of the main threats to the marine ecosystem and endangers the survival of over 800 animal species. Among the most threatened creatures are the most iconic species, which, in addition to an indispensable ecosystemic function, also have an irreplaceable cultural value, such as sea turtles and cetaceans.
The giants of the sea are under threat
Researchers from the Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science at the University of Padua, on the occasion of the launch of the MayDaySOSPlastica tour, presented a preliminary study revealing worrying data: in our country, an average of 150–160 cetaceans are stranded every year. Thirty per cent of deaths are caused by human activities such as maritime traffic and fishing, while contamination from plastic is on the rise. This trend is confirmed by the increasingly frequent discovery of stranded animals with large quantities of plastic in their stomachs, such as the pregnant female sperm whale that beached itself at the end of March at Porto Cervo, in whose stomach 22 kilograms of plastic were found.