Cigarettes on the beach, this is how Paola collects thousands of butts every day. Let's do the same!

CIGARETTES ON THE BEACH

The first shift is in the morning. The second shift is in the afternoon, after the swimmers have eaten, taken the coffee and smoked. Paola Giovenzana it's a wonderful sweeper of the beaches: nobody pays her, obviously, but every day, at two different times, she goes through the rows of beach umbrellas in the Saracen Bay in Varigotti, on the Ligurian Riviera, and picks up, one by one, the cigarette butts cigarettes left by the usual and numerous uncivilized tourists (Italian or foreign, it really doesn't matter). Barbarians ruining corners of a paradise, our beaches, which belong to all of us, and we all must defend.

ALSO READ: Retired Ulisse on the beach in Sardinia: he blocks uncivilized people and collects waste (photos and video)

PAOLA GIOVENZANA

It may be due to banal coincidences, it may be due to my feverish curiosity, but I have to tell you that I have met several people like Paola around Italy. And someone, like the dearest Gianni, a Sicilian pensioner, we've also talked about it. It's the anthropic paradigm, which refers to the flesh-and-blood men of Bella Italia. Some destroy it, with indifference, cynicism, and a lack of basic education; others, like Paola, try to defend her, with passion, energy, generosityItalians, after all, are and always will be like this, with this form of double, triple, and quadruple identity that we must learn to recognize realistically, without either commiseration or self-celebration. We are like this, and we cannot change in a day, but we can feel the desire and the will to improve, starting from simple and revolutionary gestures, from small but actually enormous changes in lifestyles, from examples to share, contaminate, imitate.. Like the daily battle of Paola and Gianni.

BUTTs ON THE BEACH

One last thing. When Paola, while collecting cigarette butts and stuffing them into plastic bottles to dispose of them properly, encounters a barbarian and catches him red-handed, she doesn't insult him, she doesn't warn him that there are hefty fines for throwing cigarette butts on the beach, but simply says: "Would you do the same at home?"Here is the sharp and highly effective question we must ask the barbarians, metaphorically grabbing them by the ears, one by one. A question that, rest assured, will make them blush with shame, and perhaps will help them not to repeat the outrage..

MEN AND WOMEN WHO SAVE OUR SEA

Gianni: the Sicilian retiree who collects cigarette butts on Palermo's beaches. And pays one euro per butt.

Ocean Cleanup: A Young Dutchman Teaches Us How to Clean Up the Sea

Row-bot, a robot to clean the sea. It recharges by eating garbage.

The Ecological Power of Soy: Cleaning the Sea from Pollution