An unprecedented event: over sixty participants, eleven associations, one supporter. Plastic Free and Wind of Change brought together Reggio for the good of the environment and the protection of the sea on Sunday 16 June at the Foce del Calopinace.
The event, organized with the patronage of the Municipality of Reggio Calabria, is part of a national Plastic Free and Wind of Change project: the tour of Italy by kayak and van by Leone Ortega and Giacomo Arrighini, which began last May 1st , to raise awareness of the dangers of illegal waste abandonment and the direct consequences this has on the marine ecosystem.
Science, environment and sport, the three founding pillars of the project, also met in the Reggio leg of the tour thanks to the collaboration of the entities and volunteers involved.
Seven hundred kilos of waste removed from the environmentthe result of the teamwork of volunteers from Plastic Free, Fare Eco, ESN Rhegium, Associazione Coopisa, Abakhi, Lega Navale Italiana, Scilla Diving Center, Reverse Calisthenics, with the technical support of Ecologia Oggi, present on the field for the entire duration of the event with the supply of work tools and a truck for immediate waste disposal at the end of the day.
Thanks to Wind of Change, each volunteer will be able to have an account of the quantity of waste removed and follow its life cycle: the project, in fact, through blockchain technology, involves the inclusion of the weight of the waste removed in a special database that can be consulted in every moment to keep track of the recycling path of the collected objects.
Eight bags of clothing, twenty-five bags of unsorted waste, sixteen of plastic, six of glass, as well as various bulky items, were recovered on the beach and in the small square of the Foce del Calopinace, but among the waste that aroused the most amazement is a can of Fanta dating back to the 1980s, still with the price in lira written on it, found on the seabed by divers from Scilla Diving Center, who dived to clean the sea in contemporary with the onshore collection event.
“We are very proud and full of joy for the result on Sunday. Seeing so many realities, even coming from different worlds, coming together for a single purpose that unites them, is all we hope for for the good of our city. We hope that this strong wave of hope and desire to fight for a better future never abandons us, but continues to grow event after event through the testimony of those who choose to join us”, comment the representatives from Reggio, organizers of the event Serena Pensabene , Ludovica Monteleone and Giovanni Mannuzza.
The Plastic Free summer calendar is still full of events. A special event dedicated to the sea at Villa San Giovanni is already scheduled for next Saturday.
To stay updated we recommend following the Instagram page and the Plastic Free Calabria Facebook group and registering on the website www.plasticfreeonlus.it