Plastic on the beach: waste or find?

Before the project was born, I had the opportunity to experiment by bringing these objects to school: there was a lot of interest and I understood that the project would be valid. Perhaps the most unexpected aspect is the social aspect, because it developed afterwards and was a new part for me. Just think that even the Instagram profile was opened three months after the project was launched. Initially I did not think about it, the priority was not the social one right away, which was born little by little. The project was born from the bottom up, with crowdfunding in which really a lot of people participated, who had already dealt with me or met me on the ground. Then from there it was also a crescendo of attention from various media.

• Approximately how much time do you spend researching the information about the object?

There are objects that took more than a year to research. For example, there is the character of the Hunchback, which did not have any kind of inscription, and that made everything more complicated. The hunchback is a Neapolitan symbol, a good luck figure. It took us a long time to figure it out. It was only months later that some clues popped up. First from a collector, who had an identical specimen, but in a different color, and had dated it to the 1960s. Then, after a TG1 report that was widely seen, a girl from the north recognized the same item and told me that she had one just like it, which had been won at a local fair by her grandparents. We are still talking about the 1960s, so it was really very dated.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjuraW5pYUK/?igsh=cHJ5a3d1ZjQxYzNx

Then there are simpler items, such as containers of famous brands, for which searches are much faster. It still takes hours because we research the brand and look to see if there are any vintage advertisements on the net. Fortunately in Italy there is a big market among collectors of old vintage advertisements, often they are few excerpts but they give us a hand in dating the objects and seeing what they were like when they were on the market; it is interesting to see how that product has degraded over time, what colors have faded, for example. If an item is in the sun for a long time, some colors tend to fade sooner than others. Sometimes the brands themselves are involved in the research, without any kind of publicity. We approach it very quietly, and sometimes brands have cooperated in identifying and dating a product; they have even provided us with pictures of what that object once looked like. Without any sponsorship, we tell the story very objectively and with documentary intent. A smart brand should understand that our goal is to raise awareness.

• What beaches do you usually frequent? In Italy or also abroad?

I really like this question. It is a project born in Puglia, both because I am from there, but also because Puglia is particularly prone to beaching. It is a matter of currents: the mistral is a wind that pushes from the north, so waste from the northern Adriatic, in the Balkan area and the Po delta, is transported south, so Puglia collects so much material. This happens especially during winter periods, when municipalities no longer clean because the establishments are closed, so the material tends to accumulate. In winter, the beaches are very dirty. Few people see them in this state because most tourists come in the summer, when the beaches are cleaned daily by operators before people arrive. So I started collecting mostly in the winter and spring. Then clearly when the project developed better, a network of collectors was created. 

Also, I found that every year is different. In Tuscany, for example, last year there was a lot of harvesting. There were a lot of swells with winds from the Tyrrhenian side. The swells also put plastic back into circulation that maybe was on the bottom or in the sand, in the dunes that then go into erosion. In principle, it is a phenomenon that affects any place in the world because even the most paradise-like beach is not immune to the plastic problem. Some places, however, are more affected by currents and other factors related, for example, to the presence of rivers that put plastic. Regions such as Puglia are a bit more unfortunate because there are more obvious beaching phenomena. Abroad, on the other hand, I have some non-direct experience, someone sending me pictures. Although I have not gone there yet, I have a desire to explore foreign beaches as well.

• What is the element that gives you the most satisfaction with the Archeoplastica project?

Definitely the fact that a community has been created, on a social level. I feel I can interact with people, share ideas. There has also developed a collaboration in finding the origin of objects together. This is an aspect that I really like. I am also particularly interested in the exhibition part because it allows people to physically recognize the objects: so many people write to me that they are happy to see some artifacts that they had already seen with their eyes on social media and whose stories they already knew. It is not at all easy to organize an exhibition, but it is something that we are developing more and more, also because it allows us to reach so many people, who are amazed to see the bottle of an object that maybe their parents used. Then a slightly more negative feeling takes over, which is the awareness of the fact that that bottle was picked up on the beach, a place where it obviously should not have been. The exhibitions also allow school groups to be reached, the children are interested, they are attracted to these objects from the past, which by the younger ones are seen as being right out of prehistory, even though they are the age of their parents and grandparents.

• Even though you still speak very highly of the community, you still work on socials. Have you ever received any negative comments as well, and if so, how did you react?

I received some in the beginning. Especially on Facebook, there were some who said they were fakes. They bothered me a little bit, more because it’s an offense that disrespects great work, so I used to respond. But then, once Archeoplastica was born, so many other people started doing what I do, which is to take a good look at what you find on the beach. They were collecting in many other parts of Italy and they found that actually on the beach among the trash there is a lot of unsuspected material, which at first glance looks like modern material, however it is not. And so, very often these pickers would respond to comments saying it was a fake, pointing out that they too had found bottles from many decades ago. Then there are some rude people who comment with vulgar language, but they are immediately banned because, especially on Instagram, the account is followed a lot by families and therefore also by children who watch the videos together with their parents. That is why for me it is necessary to keep the page always quite clean of possible swear words.

• What is the strangest object you have ever found at the beach?

We found many strange things. To tell you, a denture. We have found all kinds of things, even bulky things, like a toilet flush box. Or often even the toilet seat cover for example. How did it end up in the sea? Boh. Of oddities, we really saw a lot! 

To learn more about plastic recycling, read the interview with Venice Calls, a Venetian association that organizes workshops to educate people about plastic recycling. 

If, on the other hand, you are interested in learning more about beach archaeology, don’t miss this article!