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Reducing Plastic Pollution by Recovery and Recycling: Evidence from a “Blue Economy” Project Impacting Policy-Making in Italy
Summary
This paper presents the Seabed Cleaning Project—a fishermen-led coastal debris recovery initiative in Italy—as a Blue Economy tool achieving measurable reductions in seafloor plastic through collaboration between fishers, municipalities, and local communities. The project's practices were scaled nationally through the 'Salva Mare' Law approved by the Italian Senate in 2022, demonstrating how local grassroots action can translate into binding national policy.
This paper recognizes the relevance of the Seabed Cleaning Project, created by the Angelo Vassallo Sindaco Pescatore Foundation in 2010, and presents it as a tool to achieve benefits in environmental, social, and economic terms, in line with the innovative framework of the Blue Economy. The project suggests a practical, feasible, and scalable solution to plastic pollution that can be obtained thanks to the activity performed by fishermen in cooperation with the municipality and local community (in a multi-level cooperation perspective). The data show a significant reduction of plastic on the seafloor thanks to the project, but further research is needed in order to collect further positive outcomes from different applications of the project. In 2022, the "Salva Mare" Law was approved in the Senate, extending the good practices proposed by the Foundation nationwide and showing how small gestures and concrete actions can provide significant improvements in pursuit of a healthier, safer, greener, and smarter city for the future.