(Admiral Giuseppe De Giorgi) After returning to port from a trip started the 22 June from Liguria and finished a few days ago in Friuli Venezia Giulia the Legambiente Green Schooner brings us the annual health balance of our seas and our coasts: critical the result of these analyzes with almost 8% of the most polluted Italian waters compared to last year; the 48% of the samples taken from our seas is in fact "strongly polluted" (39%) and "polluted" (9%). Our sea is therefore always less clean, despite alarms, complaints and reports, regarding the situation of continued deterioration in which our waters have long been running. 
The monitoring of Green Schooner takes into consideration the points at "greater risk" of pollution, identified by the reports of the circles of Legambiente and citizens through the SOS Goletta service and analyzed through microbiological parameters (such as intestinal Enterococci and Escherichia coli). In this way, samples were considered as "polluted" in which at least one of the two parameters exceeds the limit value set by the legislation on bathing water in Italy (Legislative Decree 116 / 2008 and decree implementing 30 March 2010). While those in which the limits are exceeded more than twice the regulatory value are "strongly polluted". From the 2018 campaign of the Legambiente sailboat that every summer navigates along the 7.500 km of the Italian coasts to monitor the health of the Mediterranean, so very encouraging data have emerged. In comparison to the 52% of the 261 points sampled by the technicians in the 15 Italian coastal regions within the limits of the law, the remainder is polluted for, in practice, one point every 59 kilometers. According to the Legambiente report, the negative results that we can surely attribute to the poor purification that are still suffering in large areas of our country and for which the European Union has presented us with a very high rate. Let us not forget that Italy has just undergone two convictions today, and a third infringement procedure has already begun, on over 909 urban agglomerations scattered throughout the territory of the peninsula (25% in Sicily with 231 agglomerates , 143 in Calabria equal to 16%, and finally 122 in Campania, that is 13% of the total). The completion of the sewerage and wastewater purification network is one of the great works, in my opinion, that our country lacks most, bad purification is, in fact, an environmental emergency that must be addressed with extreme urgency (it is worth remembering that for the EU fine we initially paid almost 25 million euros which are added to the 30 million that we will have to add to the bill every six months until we are in good standing). Last year the most polluted region in Italy was Lazio. After 5 years of reports the coasts of Lazio, Calabria, Campania and Sicily, have not improved their situation, indeed. However, Sicily is leading this year by the number of sampling results beyond the limits: 21 points outlaws on the 26 total sampling carried out along the coasts of the region (17 "heavily polluted", 4 "polluted"). Follow the Campania with 20 points beyond the limits (19 "heavily polluted") on 31 sampling carried out; Lazio with 17 points beyond the limits on the monitored 24 (12 are "heavily polluted"), and Calabria with 15 on 22 (12 "heavily polluted"). In spite of the fact that the information boards have been obligatory for years now for the municipalities, the lack of information to the citizens also concerns the points officially forbidden to bathing.
The almost two months of voyage of the environmental vessel also served to denounce environmental illegalities, oil drilling, the problem of waste at sea. The mouths of rivers, canals, streams, suspicious discharges and other critical points are the places where the greatest criticalities are concentrated: out of 149 monitored mouths, 106 (71%) were "heavily polluted" (the 61%) and "polluted" (10%). On the other hand, 43% of the points sampled are beaches. On 78 monitored beaches, an average of 620 litter was found every 100 meters. After bad waste management and illegal landfills, seaside tourism is in fact one of the main sources of plastic in the sea, over a third of the waste that we can find on our shores is in fact attributable to this tourism. Litter "forgotten" on the beach every day by tourists or missing due to the limited waste management capacity of the seaside resorts, often insufficient to cope with the high summer turnout. Every object forgotten and not collected there inevitably ends up crumbling over time, also for this reason some areas of the Mediterranean, a practically closed sea, have the highest concentration of micro-plastics in the world. And of the 300 million tons of plastic materials that are produced every year, at least 8 million, as we all know, end up in the ocean.
So not only recycling, which alone may not be enough, but also a different education and a change in our behavior to raise awareness among all citizens both against the abandonment of waste and in limiting the use of disposable products: once compromised the "Sea resource" will no longer be possible to renew it "(quoting the new Minister of the Environment at the launch of the #iosonoambiente campaign).