In collaboration with our Italian partner ReMida Bologna, the Environmental Protection Association has carried out extensive environmental work on Italian soil over the past two years. With strong collaboration and funding from Erasmus+, we launched the project FiuMare in March 2024, which, in line with the name’s wordplay on river and sea – fiume and mare – combines river and beach cleanup with education about the sea and plastic pollution in Italy. FiuMare is largely based on the successful model of beach cleanup and teaching that we have run along the Norwegian coast since 2017, but it has also developed into its own success story.

From Norwegian fjords to Italian beaches

Since 2017, the Teaching and Beach Cleanup Tour has been an important part of the Environmental Protection Association’s fight against marine litter, and a cornerstone of our campaign Living oceans. Levende HavFor over 9 years, we have carried out and developed the project in a way that has produced enormous results for the environment, and we have had the opportunity to speak about the environment, plastic pollution, and sustainability with more than 30,000 children and youth who face an increasingly uncertain future. The project has also inspired international long-term volunteers who joined us in the field to take up the fight against marine litter in their own countries, to become advocates for nature and animals vulnerable to human greed, and to pass on the knowledge and experiences they gained about the sea and plastic along the Norwegian coast when they travel out into the world again. Such engagement from a former long-term volunteer turned out to be the beginning of our Italy collaboration and the FiuMare project.

The Italian FiuMare project is based on our Norwegian project model for teaching and beach cleanup, where the main goal is to introduce as many people as possible to beach cleanup, remove as much marine debris as possible, and educate younger generations about the sea and plastic pollution. The project is a collaboration with Association Funamboli APS and their educational center ReMida Bologna, a center for the creative reuse of waste materials from companies, specializing in creative, future-oriented educational programs about the environment and sustainability. The purpose of the collaboration has been knowledge exchange regarding the communication of the consequences of marine litter and plastic pollution, further development of our school tour project model, and active environmental work across borders. The Environmental Protection Association has contributed practical knowledge of cleanup work and field safety, while ReMida has contributed both theoretical and practical knowledge about creative teaching and communication methods that work well with children and youth. 

Over 12 tons of waste removed from Italian nature

In practice, it is the Italian Cristina Li Pera, a representative from ReMida Bologna and former international long-term volunteer beach cleaner on our Norwegian school tour, who has carried out the FiuMare project in 2024 and 2025. With a burning commitment to nature, animals, and the planet we only have one of, Cristina has led beach cleanup actions with help from volunteers and in collaboration with several Italian organizations in large parts of Northern Italy, from Bologna and the Emilia-Romagna region in the northeast to Genoa, Turin, Lake Como, and Lake Maggiore in the northwest.

 In these areas, Cristina has also conducted creative teaching on marine litter for 3,686 Italian students aged 13–30, taken school classes on beach and river cleanups, and set up creative and interactive exhibitions in her mobile classroom to illustrate to the Italian public how plastic and other waste are often transported by rivers before ending up in the sea. In total, FiuMare has cleaned 12,607 kg of both river and marine waste, and already in September 2024 the project received so much attention for the environmental work done along Italian rivers and coastlines that it was covered on national TV in Italy. 

Why we must give space to young people in the environmental fight

The engagement and inspiration we have experienced that the school tour evokes among young people, both nationally and now internationally, shows how important it is to invite the younger generation to be active participants in the fight for the environment. Our experience after many years in the field is that when people get the opportunity to physically engage with environmental problems and see them with their own eyes, they experience greater ownership and responsibility for the problem. In the case of marine litter and plastic pollution, we have really seen this effect by inviting children and youth to join us on beach cleanups over several years. Not only do they see what happens to plastic that ends up in the sea, nature, and the ecosystems we rely on, but it also gives them an understanding that they themselves can make a difference. It is not uncommon for us to receive calls from students, children, and youth who have joined us for beach cleanups, expressing enormous commitment to protecting the environment after seeing and learning about the consequences of plastic in nature.

The environmental battle requires collaboration

To get the younger generation to want to take over the baton and fight for a clean environment for both current and future generations, community and collaboration in the environmental fight must be strengthened, and young people must be given space in the cooperation. This is largely the reason we wanted to take our school tour project model with teaching and beach cleanup out into Europe. We believe in international collaboration and cooperation between adults and youth in facing global environmental problems such as marine litter and plastic pollution, because these problems cannot be limited by human-made borders. If we are to have a chance to stop the flow of plastic into nature, ensure that by 2050 there is not more plastic than fish in the sea, and secure that future generations have access to food, water, and air without plastic, the world’s countries must tackle the problem together. 

Stopping marine litter and plastic pollution requires changes in values and attitudes across cultures and borders, and it requires solutions across the planet’s different environments and climates. But most of all, it requires environmental collaboration across generations, and it requires the inclusion of children and youth in projects like FiuMare and the environmental fight to a much greater extent.

“We are 8.2 billion. Imagine what we could do if we join forces for a cleaner, fairer, freer world. It’s not rhetoric, but the truth. Even a small gesture counts.” – Cristina Li Pera, Feltleder i FiuMare og ReMida representant.

“I think that that this project is incredibly important to the world we live in today … and projects like [FiuMare] gives hope for the future of the world.” – Bella (USA), Frivillig i FiuMare i 2025.

“Talking to the italian people and kids we met felt like we could make a difference.” – Marianne (Tyskland), Frivillig i FiuMare i 2025.

“[The project’s] uniqueness is that by working with FiuMare, you can find, recognize, and convey beauty even in something like waste, which is often hidden or discarded, but plays an increasingly important role in the fate of the planet.” – Stefania (Italia), Frivillig i FiuMare i 2025.