Plastic is the waste that most infests our sea. Legambiente launches an appeal to extend the ban on plastic bags, already in force in Italy, to all countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.
The most widespread material among the waste infesting the Mediterranean Sea is plastic. This is reported by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) and confirmed by Legambiente's monitoring activities in the Mediterranean. Over the years, these activities have involved eight coastal countries (Algeria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and Tunisia) in collecting waste from the sea and on beaches, highlighting in particular the presence of plastic bags, which account for 16 per cent of all waste identified. Further international estimates speak of as many as 25 million bags per thousand kilometres of coastline.
For this reason, during the latest climate conference (Cop 22) in Marrakech, Morocco, Legambiente launched the appeal — which Kyoto club and Alleanza per un Mediterraneo sostenibile have joined — with the aim of extending the ban on plastic bags, already in force in Italy, France and Morocco — which introduced it this very year among its environmental policy decisions ahead of the international climate conference — to all countries bordering the Mediterranean.
Even today, in Europe alone, 100 billion plastic bags are used per year, with an equivalent consumption of 190 million tonnes of oil to produce them. Banning them could therefore significantly reduce their use, crude oil consumption and the resulting CO2 emissions. This is demonstrated by data from Italy, the first country in Europe to ban plastic bags in 2011, where, despite the ban not yet being fully observed, it has nonetheless achieved over five years a 55 per cent reduction in plastic bag consumption (from 200,000 to 90,000 tonnes per year) and a decrease in CO2 terms of around 900,000 tonnes.
If the ban were extended to all countries bordering the Mediterranean, the results in climate terms would be far more significant, thanks to the considerable reduction in crude oil consumption and the decrease in CO2 emissions, with notable benefits for the marine and coastal environment as well.
The commitment of Legambiente, together with Kyoto club and Alleanza per un Mediterraneo sostenibile, does not therefore end with the call for a ban on plastic bags. Also in the environmentalists' sights are microplastic particles used in cosmetics and in non-biodegradable and non-compostable cotton buds. To this end, alongside the ban, the proposal launched in Marrakech includes the definition of a plan to reduce and recycle plastic across all sectors, and an international campaign to increase separate waste collection.