The Italian Sea keeps getting cleaner May 25, 2009

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Italian beaches fully deserve their nomination for the Blue Flag Award, sponsored by the Fund of Ecological Education in partnership with the COBAT (The national organization for used battery recycling). In the overall classification listing 23 members, Italy took the fifth place among the countries of the Mediterranean Sea basin, following Spain, Greece, Turkey and France, according to Italian National Tourism Bureau.

This summer over 227 beaches are going to be awarded with the Blue Flag, 12 more than last year. 113 of these beaches are sea resorts (9 more than last season). Leading the winners are Liguria, Marche, and Tuscany, these beaches received 16 flags each! Compared to last year Tuscany gets one more flag (Pietrasanta from Lucca Province) The same is happening in the Marche region (Mondolfo in the Pesaro e Urbino province). Liguria won 2 new flags: Savona- Fornaci in Savona Province and Amelia Fiumaretta in the La Spezia Province. The fourth place is firmly held by the Abruzzi province with 13 awards. One flag goes to Campania, where all the resort candidates achieved the environmental targets and won 12 awards for the region.

Emilia-Romagna still has 8 flags. Seven flags go to Apulia (two of them new), 6 flags go to Veneto (one flag is a newcomer). Calabria and Lazio received one new flag each, collecting a total of 4 flags respectively. The Friuli-Venezia Giulia still has two flags, much like Basilicata. Two flag go to lakes. One of them to Lake Scanno, In L’Aquila province, where there was an earthquake. The second one goes to Verbano Province (Piedmont), Cannero Riviera. The Blue Flags are awarded to resort areas were special attention is given to environmental protection. Stringent control and monitoring of the water filtering technology, and garbage recycling (especially the more contagious one).