SeaCleaner

The focus of the project is to obtain infomations on the presence, distribution, quantity and type, and impact of anthropogenic wastes in the marine environment, one of the emerging environmental problems of recent decades, especially in isolated or protected coastal areas. In SeaCleaner this problem is addressed from several perspectives:

-through monitoring dedicated to the classification and quantification of anthropogenic marine litter accumulated at coastal areas, and the study of the dynamics of marine litter accumulation. Such monitoring and studies are carried out both according to standard manual collection and classification protocols (Merlino et al., 2015, 2016, 2018 and Giovacchini et al., 2018), and often taking advantage of the help of volunteers and students (citizen science), and by means of innovative technologies, such as aerial drones;

-through experiments aimed at studying how the actual degradation of commonly used and plastic materials, both standard and biodegradable or compostable, proceeds in surface, deep-sea, and simulated beach environments;

-through further experiments to track and follow the routes that the waste takes once it leaves the rivers (considered to be the main vectors of anthropogenic waste input into the sea), and thus to understand what are, in the different areas studied, the main conditions and areas of accumulation of such debris;

-through education and outreach, two important and priority tools to ensure that the knowledge gained in research can be transformed into awareness of the problem by all, and thus be translated into appropriate behavior and actions to prevent and reduce such problems. 

Since 2013, the SeaCleaner project has involved around 3500 pupils, researchers and citizen volunteers in the monitoring of Anthropogenic Marine Debris (AMD) found stranded on our coastlines. The logo for the project itself was created by high school students engaged in a working-related internship in 2014 (Merlino et al., 2015).

Citizen Science

The concept of Citizen Science is the core around which the SeaCleaner project revolves (Merlino et al., 2018), as citizens are seen as an active part of the monitoring and data collection process: by means of field research to be carried out together with researchers or trainers by participating in research activities for scientific but also educational/dissemination purposes. The data collected are transferred to databases of research institutes participating in these activities. The results are made public by means of scientific articles but also by means of popular conferences, reports in journals and on the Internet. Particular attention is paid to involving schools, also by means of didactic tools such as Transversal Competence Pathways and Orientation (formerly Alternanza scuola-lavoro). The aim of the project is therefore threefold:

1) To make young people more aware of environmental issues and, with them, also adults close to them (parents, relatives);

2) To bring young people closer to science in an active, fun and exciting way. Students who participate in such science experiences come out with a knowledge of what the scientific method is gained in the field and with a wealth of experience that leads them to better application of their knowledge and the acquisition of skills that are difficult to obtain in the classroom. Added to this is often an increased confidence in their own abilities (non-formal learning and emotion-based learning).

3) Finally, the research aspect embraced both scientific and educational topics. In the first case, the participation of a large number of volunteers and students, adequately trained, enabled the researchers involved in the project to acquire a large number of scientifically valid data, and to use them to improve knowledge of the problem, as attested by the publications in national and international journals published, and the master's theses discussed (see bibliography). In the second case, by means of suitably prepared questionnaires, evaluations were carried out, correlated with statistical analyses, in order to understand what the population's perception of the problem of anthropogenic waste in the marine environment was, and what the impact, in educational terms, of the project itself was on the students involved in the proposed actions.  The results show how the interactive strategy adopted, and the fact of having the students act directly in the field, in close contact with the problem to be addressed and with the researchers themselves, greatly contributes to raising their awareness of these issues, making them more aware of the problem and of what possible measures to implement and what behaviour to adopt in order to reduce it (Locritani et al., 2019).