Over the years we have worked in the Arctic, Mediterranean Sea, coasts, rivers, plains and hills. We felt it was essential to deal with the mountains, an environment that has so far been little studied in this respect.
In 2021 we then promoted the 'Stop the Alps becoming plastic mountains' project, which produced important research on microplastics in snow: the first to monitor a vast area (the entire west of the Italian Alps) and along an entire winter season.
During the operations, an average of half a kilogram of plastic waste per kilometer along 197 km of high mountain trails was also collected - through awareness-raising and clean-up excursions on the same territories.
E.R.I. has therefore initiated a new project that, in addition to moving on different levels of action such as awareness, education, training and prevention, acts on research by documenting type and brand-where recognizable-of objects dispersed in the alpine environment. CleanAlp from 2022 to July 2024, funded by EOCA (European Outdoor Conservation Association) and The North Face Explore Fund has thus produced three years of activities throughout the Italian northwestern Alps (Piedmont and Aosta Valley) with extraordinary results in terms of participation, data collected and awareness and dissemination actions put in place.
The numbers, the results have been very significant: 940.79 km covered during 84 hikes, 1302 participants involved, 404.923 kg of waste collected with an average of 0.430 kg per kilometer, 1536 students and 695 professionals affected by the education and training activities, as well as several thousand people touched by the dissemination activities through web ori in public events.
With CleanAlp2, funded by Compagnia di San Paolo under the Symbiosis call for proposals, E.R.I. has planned activities aimed at deepening and broadening the work with a greater depth of intervention in the territories, with the goal of not only knowing but using this knowledge to prevent.
- 100 hikes/cleaning, directly involving at least 1200 people in this activity on more than 1000 km of trails that will be completely cleared
- training of stakeholders and volunteers (at least 500 people)
- educational activities with schools (at least 1000 students)- training mountain professionals (at least 6 events, at least 500 people)
- public events and workshops (at least 10 events, at least 2000 people involved, live and online)
- producing information and dissemination materials (panels for refuges and protected areas, brochures, content for websites, etc...)
- produce videos to show the work done and the waste situation in the Alps
- produce an itinerant exhibition, not only in the valleys but also in the cities of the regions targeted by the intervention (Piedmont, Liguria, Aosta Valley)
- produce objects (gadgets) and artworks (contest for young artists and schools) with some of the collected waste
- 'systematic' prevention actions to be chosen (based on co-design with territory and operators) among: first sample supply of vegetable sponges for accommodation activities (example: shelters), support for bulk product sales development activity (packaging reduction), supply of information materials for customers and tourists
- communication activities (press and social media: fb and instagram);
