On the 30th of May 2026, Venice Lagoon Plastic Free, in participation with NH Hotels, carried out a beach clean-up and marine litter monitoring at the Secca di Sant’Alvise, a shallow tidal flat in the northern Venetian lagoon and one of our city’s most monitored marine litter hotspots. The activity is part of VLPF tradition of marking World Environment Day with hands-on action.
28 volunteers took part, from adults to a particularly enthusiastic 10-year-old, a reminder that caring for our lagoon knows no age limit. Starting around 9:30 in the morning, participants worked along a 100-metre stretch of shoreline, collecting and sorting waste into categories: plastic bottles, glass, polystyrene pieces, and more. As collection bags filled up, part of the team turned to the meticulous work of separating and counting each item, a key step in the standardised marine litter monitoring protocol.
In total, 56.76 kg of waste was removed from the shoreline, of which 23.4 kg was plastic and 33.36 kg other materials, while 2,873 individual items were catalogued across monitoring categories. The most prevalent find was glass fragments (≥ 2.5 cm), with 1,545 pieces collected, accounting for over half of all items recorded. The most common plastic categories were expanded polystyrene fragments (276), plastic beverage bottles (156), and non-expanded plastic fragments (144). Together, these figures paint a picture of a site under persistent pressure from both land-based and marine sources of pollution.
Among the most telling finds were the plastic water bottles. With over 150 collected in a single 100-metre stretch, they speak directly to the pressures of mass tourism on the lagoon. Their presence is particularly striking given that Venice provides excellent quality tap water, making the purchase of single-use plastic bottles entirely unnecessary.
Equally concerning is the volume of polystyrene. With 276 fragments collected, it was the second most common item on site, and its presence is no surprise: polystyrene is lightweight, breaks apart easily in the environment, and is virtually impossible to clean up completely once fragmented. Unlike other materials, it does not biodegrade but instead breaks down into smaller and smaller microplastics, making its way into the food chain. A complete ban is, in VLPF’s view, the only adequate response.
Some countries have taken steps in this direction, though the picture is one of ambition repeatedly tempered by economic and political pressure. Since July 2021, the EU’s Single-Use Plastics Directive has banned cups, food, and beverage containers made of expanded polystyrene across all 27 member states, but this covers only food service items, leaving many other polystyrene applications entirely untouched. In the United States, six states had banned all uses of polystyrene as of 2024, with a further four implementing bans from 2025, but there remains no federal ban in sight. France had gone a step further, passing a law in 2021 that would have banned all polystyrene packaging regardless of use, only to withdraw it in 2024 while waiting for an EU-level ecodesign criteria to be defined. Canada followed a similar trajectory: after banning expanded polystyrene foodservice ware as part of its single-use plastics regulations, the government announced in October 2025 that it would no longer pursue the full implementation of its plastics export ban, citing economic uncertainty and shifting global trade conditions. The pattern is consistent and troubling: the science is clear, the legislation starts, and then economic interests slow it down.
Zooming back out to Sant’Alvise, the activity’s Plastic Footprint score of 0.42 means VLPF was able to collect 42% of plastic used and disposed of by a person per annum. This percentage shows how 8 bags of 120 liters each could not hold what a single individual generates per year. It underscores precisely why we need more effective regulation and full banning of SUPs.
This monitoring is part of VLPF’s continued commitment to assess the magnitude of the Venice Lagoon ecosystem’s exposure to marine litter through citezen sciencebased action and community engagement.
