REPORTAGE
As every year for a quarter of a century, world leaders meet to try to find a solution to the environmental crisis. COP 25 starts Monday in Madrid. And this year it will be largely devoted to the oceans.
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In Italy, for almost a year, sailors have not waited for the great ones of this world to act. They went to war against plastic waste polluting the sea. Each day, they put back several kilos in their nets, a real work of garbage man, which is allowed for some months only in some ports of the country. These Italian fishermen are the first witnesses: it is urgent to act. Italy is one of the biggest polluters in the Mediterranean. And the waste is wreaking havoc on the marine fauna. Reportage
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As every day around 15h, the cries of gulls announce the return of the first trawlers. We are in Anzio, a small tourist town in the south of the Rome region. And one of the most important fishing ports of the Tyrrhenian Sea, part of the Mediterranean. On the dock, leaning on his cane, Ciro watches the unloading from the top of his 80s. He is the president of the local fishermen's association.
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Look, everything we found in the sea, crates, garbage cans, yeah, even old shoes, a bag of croquettes
"There, they take out all the fish of the day for the auction.They left in the night, around 2am, and they come back only now," he says, describing the work of the sinners of the city. After 13 hours spent at sea, the work of these fishermen does not stop there.
Boots with feet and orange jumpsuit, Kamel and Alessio go back on their boat. "There, we have to sort out all that plastic ... Look, everything we found in the sea, crates, garbage cans, yeah, even old shoes, a bag of croquettes ... It's amazing, there everything and anything in the sea ... and especially too much plastic, "says Kamel. "Bottles, a fillet of potatoes ... And it's like that every day! Every day, we fill one or two big bags like that," adds Alession. "All this waste that we find, we bring them back to the ground, and we throw them into the containers that were installed just there," he continues.
They call it "the ecological island": a mini-dump, a few steps from the ship. It was put in place last March by a municipal decree. Since then, she has saved them hundreds of euros in fines. Because as in all Italy, at Anzio, it was forbidden until then to land the plastic on the port, says Angelo, pushing a swordfish on a cart.
"Basically, before, when we came back to the port, we could not land the plastic because it is considered toxic waste, otherwise had to pay a company specialized in recovery," says Angelo. "It was our responsibility, well, a lot of them were throwing in the sea what they had recovered, because if we landed at the harbor without declaring it, we would take a plum, now that it's official we can do it quietly, "he continues.
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Like sweepers cleaning the street, we have to clean the sea
Like Angelo, here everyone is quickly invested. From now on, the 28 trawlers of the port unload, each day, ten kilos of waste each, recovered on a hundred km of coasts. To save the sea is a mission for all these fishermen. "For us, especially, the trawlers, who recover from everything! Our nets, it's like a big dish that picks up everything because we fish in the depths," continues Angelo. "So, like sweepers cleaning the street, we have to clean the sea".
But given the extent of the pollution at sea, it was the entire local population that also had to be mobilized. "The worst is the kind of plastic ribbons used to tie bags, garbage cans, you see them everywhere and they stay at sea forever." The fish die choked because they eat them, and it's still in their stomachs, so we, as protectors of the sea, wanted to make everybody aware, like children, so that they can pick up rubbish on the beaches, now the boaters and divers of Anzio do it also at sea. And since this summer, the City Council has taken a decree: any type of plastic is prohibited on the beaches ", details Ciro.
Cap on his head, his hands still wet, Lorenzo has just come down from his trawler "The Flying Fish", the very first ship that dared bring the plastic to the ground. The captain is angry, but optimistic for the future. "Oh, plastic, it's been 50 years since everyone sails for a dump, tankers, commercial boats, cruises ... but the problem is not pollution at sea, is upstream: on the ground, in the rivers, the mouths, all the dirt always ends up in the sea, but I think we are useful anyway, we have already removed a good part of it, it shows in our nets that there are less plastic stuff in the middle of our fish ... so we started less than a year ago! "
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It's all work that must be done more ... and without taking a euro in the process!
But Lorenzo is worried ... sometimes he can not go off for days. Fish are becoming more and more rare. So even if he wants to be a plastic fisherman, he wants his new activity to be recognized. "It's all work we have to do more ... and without taking a euro in the process!" So far, we do everything for free, so since we are already struggling to continue working, if a minister offered a kind of bonus or a reduction on our taxes, it would give us a good hand.Well, I do not like that we are called 'scavengers of the seas' but in fact, I think it is the right word because my job is clearly changing, but I prefer to say that we are the 'guardians of the sea', I, the sea, it is my whole life ".
The motivation of Anzio's sinners is staggering in Italy. More and more groups of fishermen decide in their turn to go fishing / hunting plastic and organize, on the ground, a legal pickup with the local authorities. A law is even being examined in the Italian parliament. If it does not provide financial aid for these sinners, its objective is to create a kind of "eco-label", so that the consumer can be informed of the efforts of these "guardians of the sea".