If there is something that unites all those who overlook the same sea, it is the waste that ruins it. Six countries overlooking the Adriatic have joined forces in the European project Bluecircle to minimize its presence on their beaches
Not only microplastics, but also cigarette butts and cotton buds, pieces of polystyrene, wipes, glass and ceramics, deckchairs and pieces of umbrellas. The beaches of the Adriatic are heavily “frequented” by waste and, unlike tourists, many occupy them all year round, marking numbers of presences that far exceed what is tolerated by the European Union.
There are no specific numbers for the Adriatic coasts but the extent of the phenomenon can be partly intuited from the average Italian national ones. If the maximum quantity of waste (“beach litter”) that a European beach must host to be considered “healthy” is 20 anthropic elements every 100 meters, in fact, we are talking about at least 10 times as much.
According to ARPA , in 2023, between the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Seas, there were more than 250 units. Last year, Legambiente volunteers found as many as 900.
In addition to confirming the almost obvious triumph of plastic, this meticulous work has served to underline the permanent presence of disposable objects: they have officially disappeared from the market for years, but not yet from our waters.
Same beach, same sea, different waste
Due to its concave profile and shallowness, the Adriatic is condemned to the accumulation of waste on the beaches and the rivers, which also bring it from the interior to the north – the Po first and foremost – only aggravate the problem and not only near the mouth.
There are no latitudes or borders, EU coasts or not yet: the exchange of water is ongoing and every element that floats in it travels from coast to coast like a cruise ship. When it ends up in the stomachs of fish, birds and other marine organisms, through the food chain, it can also reach our tables, causing damage to health.
Massimiliano Falleri, head of the Marevivo diving division, has been monitoring and fighting this phenomenon for years with awareness campaigns and waste removal activities both from the sea and from beaches and is increasingly convinced that collective work is needed.
“Everyone should contribute both by reducing the use of plastic and by disposing of waste more correctly, otherwise this will remain an endless cycle,” he explains. “Although awareness by governments, organizations and citizens has grown over the last five years, the amount of waste remains high, especially due to incorrect disposal practices and the stubborn use of single-use plastic.”
The COVID-19 pandemic had inevitably increased its presence, but the decline that was hoped to be seen in the post-COVID era never arrived. According to Marevivo, “beach litter” in the Adriatic remains “an important challenge: its recent evolution confirms the need to intensify both prevention and management efforts”.
Crossing the sea, the quantity of waste found on the beach does not change much but the typology does, showing how the cleanliness of these strips of land depends on what happens both in the sea and on land, on one’s own and on that of others.
Analyzing beach litter on the Albanian coasts, for example, specific characteristics emerge that help to hypothesize mitigating interventions aimed at the territory in question. Thanks to a recent scientific study that the University of Cadiz dedicated to Albanian beach litter only, it was noted for example that plastic fragments and objects prevail (82%) as elsewhere, but in this country they are mainly linked to local tourism and mixed with elements that arrived through waste water.
Giorgio Anfuso Melfi, one of the authors of the research, among the “usual” waste such as cigarette butts, bottle caps and plastic fragments, says he also found abandoned beach furniture, such as old deck chairs and umbrellas “not common elsewhere and all mainly linked to beach establishments”.
Although in seasonal waves, in Albania tourism seems to be the main source of beach litter while fishing contributes in a less significant way. According to Anfuso Melfi “it is therefore necessary to study targeted interventions to improve the awareness of beach goers and strengthen cleaning activities by municipalities and beach establishments”.
Not just fish: dirty beaches threaten everyone
Be it in the sea or on the beach, plastic or cigarette butts, much of the waste present in the Adriatic area “risks being confused with food by fish but also by birds, turtles and many other marine organisms, even causing their death, for example if the plastic blocks the digestive system or releases toxic substances”, explains Falleri.
“Beach litter can also damage natural habitats, such as coralligenous biocenoses and seagrass meadows, compromising their ability to support marine life. In this case they would also be a threat to sponges, bryozoans, corals and gorgonians which, remaining trapped, would lose the possibility of feeding themselves”.
Coastal communities are also among the victims of beach waste, especially those that live off fishing and tourism. “Depending on the sea, they often find themselves forced to carry out and financially support cleaning operations to reduce the visual, landscape and economic impact”, Falleri continues, reporting above all the voice of Marevivo Puglia, “not to mention that this type of pollution can also cause damage to health: some waste can in fact injure, or poison if it is made of plastic or other harmful materials and enters the food chain”.
This is a danger for anyone who lives near beaches covered in waste, and professional fishermen must take into account some additional financial damage. Nets and gear can in fact get caught or damaged by floating plastic waste, reducing the quantity of fish caught and increasing the maintenance costs of the equipment.
Bluecircle: circular economy with waste in circulation
Fish and other marine organisms, fishermen and other coastal inhabitants: with waste on the beach everyone loses in health, some also financially, no one certainly benefits from it. Yet there is no awareness and collection campaign that has significantly reduced the phenomenon, so far.
This is why for about ten months a circular economy approach has been tested thanks to the European interregional project Bluecircle (Boosting Circular Economy Solutions for Marine Litter Collection and Recycling in the Adriatic-Ionian Regions).
Addressing Italy, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Greece and Bosnia Herzegovina, this initiative is not just about cleaning, recommendations and controls but tests new methods of treating beached waste “that transform a criticality into an opportunity”.
The goal is ambitious but there is time until the end of summer 2027 and there is over one and a half million euros of EU budget to try to reach it. Not all seven partners of the project are equally optimistic, some the most unbalanced is the scientific one, the author of the experimental plant itself, the Polytechnic of Bari.
Michele Notarnicola leads the team involved in Bluecircle and you only need to listen to his voice to perceive how convinced he is that the mobile system can work on the beaches. In the coming months we will discover it by testing it in the field first in Italy and then in the other countries participating in the project since it is a small plant and replicable in every context, on every shore.
The first fundamental aspect concerns the possibility of collecting and treating waste washed up directly on the Adriatic coasts. “For us it is essential to intercept it before it can be classified as urban waste, because it would end up being considered as ‘undifferentiated’, causing a significant loss of resources and a high economic cost”, explains Notarnicola.
“For this reason we are equipped with mini robots that suck up all the objects found and take them to a mini container where we select the various fractions using three different types of equipment”.
Although for those who look at the defaced beaches, they look like shapeless accumulations floating all the same, for those who want to try to make them fit into the supply chains by minimizing the actual waste, it is essential to be able to make some distinctions.
In the piles found, plastic, glass, aluminum and wood mix with natural elements such as posidonia, aquatic plants, rotting algae and with sand, shells and other material of different grain size and it is necessary to divide them into at least three categories: inorganic, natural organic and anthropic.
For each one a separation technique is needed: the densimetric one separates sand and gravel, focusing on their different specific weight, to then reintroduce them into the environment or reuse them as a secondary raw material to produce concrete, for example.
The aeraulic separation, on the other hand, uses jets of air and isolates the lighter or high surface fractions usually composed of algae or posidonia, to then return them to the sea or transform them into compost, depending on the level of degradation reached.
The third system, called tribo-electrostatic, the most innovative one created by the Polytechnic University of Bari, has the task of separating the most critical component of beach litter: plastic.
“By using friction, in this case the particles are charged positively or negatively from an electrostatic point of view and then separated based on their surface behavior,” explains Notarnicola. “The plastic that we are able to separate in this way can be disposed of through normal waste collection circuits.
With this trident of circular economy that tries to reduce the irrecoverable share of beach waste, Bluecircle wants to get to the point of treating 100 kg of beach litter per hour, with a truck of minimal size and transferable in two or three days.
For now, a pilot plant of ten kilograms per hour is being tested to understand if the concept works in a tour that will touch every Adriatic shore, also bringing awareness campaigns and characterization standards. So that in the Adriatic basin everything can run better, except garbage.
This article is published in the context of the project “Cohesion4Climate” co-funded by the European Union. The EU is in no way responsible for the information or views expressed within the framework of the project; the sole responsibility for the content lies with OBCT.