Sicily, "Salvamare" program, the project to clean plastic from waterways begins

The program to clean up plastic from Sicilian waterways is underway to allow the capture of polluting materials before flow into the sea. The rivers identified, whose mouths require priority intervention, are the Platani in Ribera in the Agrigento area, the Simeto in the Catania area, in the Ragusa area the rivers Ippari in Vittoria, Dirillo in Acate and Irminio in Scicli and, finally, in the Trapani area the Belice in the municipality of Castelvetrano.

The program, included in the so-called law “Salvamare”, proposed by the Basin Authority of the Presidency of the Sicilian Region, has already obtained the approval of the Ministry of the Environment and makes approximately 860 thousand euros available on a three-year basis. These funds will allow you to organize a network of “traps” to capture the plastic present in rivers, so as not to pollute the seas and not send dangerous substances to the fish fauna with obvious advantages also for the food chain.

For this purpose, therefore, the Basin Authority, recipient of the funding, has convened the representatives of the Municipalities and the managers of natural reserves affected by the waterways that become subjects managing the cleaning action. The program also includes the organization of some days of awareness raising and active collection of plastics with the support of environmental associations and a parallel widespread training activity in schools.