While cleaning a beach on Elba, Legambiente volunteers found a bag of chips that had expired in September 1990
How long does a plastic bag abandoned in the environment to completely degrade? Experts say it takes 100 to 1000 years, which is a huge amount of time.
It should therefore not come as a surprise to find the Legambiente volunteers engaged in recent days to clean up the beach “I Salandri” on the Island of Elba.
During the rubbish collection organized by the environmental association, the volunteers have indeed found a bag of chips lost in the environment for almost 30 years.
The age of the snack pack is given by Expiration date, still visible on the bag despite the many years spent in salt water, sun and bad weather, which indicates to consume the product by 2 September 1990.
? Beaches "I Salandri", Marina di Campo. Buried under a layer of posidonia, we take out 600 pieces of ...
Posted by Vele Spiegate on Friday, August 16, 2019
The bag may have been thrown offshore from a boat and having reached the beach after almost thirty years, or someone could have abandoned it on the sand from where it would have reached the sea and transported to the shore for several years: sooner or later the sea returns what it has collected.
In any case, the discovery of the bag proves the resistance of plastic and demonstrates that the waste that we lightly abandon can persist in the environment for many years, with serious damage to marine ecosystems and animals.
Thanks to the valuable work of the volunteers, the beach has been cleared from 600 pieces of polystyrene, 45 cans and tins of tuna, 13 pieces of fiberglass, 10 plastic bottles and 5 buoys, as well as soles, several pieces of rubber and a boot.
Read also:
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- Piero Pelù declares war on plastic and collects waste on the beach, #famolo!
- In Puglia, the Nature Reserve invaded by plastic: an open-air landfill between the sea and the pine forest
- The plastic also killed Mariam, the little dugong hugging the rescuers
Tatiana Maselli
Photo credit Sails Spiegate Legambiente
