For a lifetime we have been talking about what should be done above, the long-awaited, famous bridge, but perhaps for the Strait of Messina it would be time to really worry about what is underneath, a tide of waste.
According to a guide from the University of Barcelona, the underwater area of the Strait is the one that has the largest density of waste in the world. It is “more than a million objects”. Experts argue that in the area between Sicily and the Italian peninsula, which has always been an area of strategic importance for maritime traffic and beyond, between poor waste management and currents, a huge amount of waste of all kinds and has accumulated so far.so as to arise worriy about in quantity and composition. They even estimate that the volume of litter at sea could exceed three billion tons in the next thirty years. Huge quantities of plastic, fishing nets and gear, metal, glass, ceramics, textiles and paper have been found on the seafloor. In general it is estimated that 62% of the dirt accumulated on the seabed is made up of plastic, “which is relatively light and easy to carry by currents over long distances”. In addition, experts highlight the problem of ghost nets and abandoned fishing gear in general which, along with other waste, threaten nearly 700 species, 17% of which are on the red list of endangered species.
So we have a record we are not proud of and would gladly do without. In the past, the strip of sea separating Sicily from Calabria was remembered for legends and myths from Scylla and Charybdis to Ulysses’ Sirens. Today, unfortunately, it is remembered for less noble reasons: it hosts more waste on its seabed than anywhere else in the world, and we know that waste is a a great threat to marine biodiversity. Unfortunately, there is still no real way to clean up the seabed, the only thing to do is to work hard and try to pollute less.
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