Clean Coast Sardinia is a local partner of an initiative called International Coastal Cleanup, launched  more than 30 years ago by Ocean Conservancy. Every year on the same day coastal cleanups are held and then important data is collected. This year, however, no specific date was chosen and the cleanup events are generally organised in the autumn season. This is the third time Clean Coast Sardinia organised a cleanup in collaboration with Ocean Conservancy. Also, this year we are planning to organise more than one event for this occasion.

On 12 September , together with other local organisations and sport groups, we managed to involve around 100 volunteers including divers, mermaids  and  standup paddle boarders, who cleaned not only part of the beach but also the sea surface and the sea bottom around Marina Piccola harbour.

Marina Piccola is located at one of the longest beaches in Sardinia, Poetto, and it is popular with water sport and leisure enthusiasts as many centers and clubs have their base here. Just round the corner there are hidden coves, reachable only by the sea, under one of the most recognisable symbols of the gulf and Cagliari itself – Sella del Diavolo – the Devil’s saddle hill.

The result is impressive. Within two hours the volunteers collected:

• fishing traps and nets
• broken beach umbrellas and beach chairs, inflatable mattresses and beach tents
• 50 kg of plastic – plastic bottles, cups, food wrappings, package wrappings, tips of the beach umbrellas, containers
• metal scrap, pipes, tubes, a car wheel
•  67 bags of waste that cannot be recycled – single-use wet-wipers containing plastic, tissues, mixed-material waste

TOTAL: Around HALF A TON of WASTE

We would like to thank all participants, especially Tutt’in SUP, SeaWorld Cagliari, SeaWorld Mermaids and SubACquaDive who helped us remove such a great amount of trash from the marine and coastal environment.