Flumendosa River Cleanup was one of the events on the long list of river cleanups rivers on the Italian territory held in September and promoted by Cleanup Italia  – the network of Italian voluntary organisations. It was also registered as International Coastal Cleanup 2020 event with our partner, Ocean Conservancy.  We are also supported by our new partner – Waste Free Oceans.

Second clean up this month was organised at the estuary of Flumendosa. We have never held an event there and when we arrived there we were at owe by the beauty of this part of the coast. The river mouth is separated from the sea by a wide stripe of sandy beach stretching for kilometres. On the horizon you can see the mountains of Muravera. At first glance, this place seems unspoilt. Unfortunately, also this part of the Sardinian coast, like many similar places around the world, has been contaminated by human activity. And judging by the waste we have found, we must say that in this particular area it was mainly related to the local fishermen’ activity.

On an extremely windy day, fifteen volunteers, all of whom reached the spot after one-hour drive, rolled up their sleeves and spread around the Flumendosa mouth and along the beach to collect the waste. The beach was relatively clean, but hidden in the vegetation we found “hotspots”, full of bottles and cans, together with empty boxes of fishing bait and rolls of fishing line. Next on the list were plastic bottles. We have also found evidence of bonfires lit on the beach, with waste left aside.

The worst kind of the trash, however, were that polystyrene boxes for transporting fish. We have found tens of them, stuck in the vegetation or accumulated in an abandoned structure by the river. Exposed to the weather conditions such as wind and sun these boxes would start breaking into smaller pieces. Sooner or later these tiny pieces would end up in the sea or the river, and eaten by the fish, they would enter our food chain. And people involved in the fishing industry seem to be either unaware of this fact or ignoring it.

Flumendosa River Cleanup in numbers:

• Glass ( bottles) – 39 kg
• General non-recyclable waste – 20 kg ( fabric, wet wipes, burnt trash)
• Plastic – 9 kg
• Fishing net & ropes
• Other trash: bed frame with metal springs, gas bottle, metal  – 50 kg

Total: Around 118 kg of WASTE removed from the environment

The surface covered: 30,590.64 m2

We have also secured and notified to the local authorities the abandoned structure that has become a site of illegal dumpsite, with fridges, pieces of furniture and tens of polystyrene boxes to follow.

A big THANK YOU to everyone! See you soon!