Half of the 92 stretches of beach analyzed in the 2022/23 school year as part of the 'Guardians of the Coast' project in which 70 thousand students and 5,600 teachers of over 4 were involved. The presence of marine waste of anthropogenic origin was detected among the beached materials, in particular plastic, present on average with around 24 small debris per square meter.
The results were presented today on the occasion of National Sea Day to raise awareness in schools of the importance of knowing the marine environment, protecting the biodiversity of the coasts and the sea and reducing pollution and waste. "The 1,925 survey points where the students operated represent a very representative sample, almost impossible to obtain from a single scientific team in a single season", underlines Ivo Rossetti of the Enea Laboratory of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of the Marine Environment Research Center of Santa Teresa (Lerici, La Spezia)" The novelty of the project this year will be "the carrying out of a fourth data collection activity based on the photointerpretation of the coastal landscape through satellite images, in order to also allow schools far from the coast to participate"