VICE published an article in September last year on an Italian beach which made me re-evaluate the common perceptions of a beach paradise. When we envision a beach paradise, images of white sand and crystal clear, bright blue water come to mind. In Rosignano Solvay exists Spiagge bianche—a beach that has been promoted as the ‘Maldives of Tuscany’. Located in Tuscany, Italy, the beach is a tourist hotspot and understandably so.

Spiagge bianche (Source: Financial Times)

Such imaginations are associated with conceptions of the beach and the Rosignano environment as pristine, undisturbed by pollution. Photos of the beach show no signs of pollution like oil-tinted waters and marine debris which characterise numerous beaches worldwide.

But did you notice an industrial plant in the top right corner of the first picture in this post? Here is another photo more clearly depicting its proximity to the beach:

The Solvay industrial plant (Source: Toscana Chianti Ambiente)

This is a soda ash and bicarbonate production plant owned by Solvay, a Belgian chemical company. VICE reports that Solvay illegally dumps toxic chemical waste (including ammonia, mercury and hexachlorobenzene) into Rosignano waters. In fact, Solvay’s powdery limestone waste is what actually creates the white sand! Even worse is that authorities have consistently claimed that the beach water is non-toxic despite multiple experts proving otherwise over the decades. In 2017, dead fish even washed up on the beach due to excess ammonia. How is it ethical or even legal for people to be allowed to swim at this beach?

I was appalled to learn that Rosignano Solvay’s romanticised pristine white-sand beach image is built on the largely unregulated pollution and the lies of various figures in power. It certainly is a toxic hellscape disguised as a beach paradise.

The popularity of this “beach paradise” is undoubtedly economically beneficial to the local economy, and Solvay’s role in Rosignano and the Italian economy even more so. Addressing the beach’s pollution, even with its identifiable point source, is therefore complex and difficult due to its potential consequences on the community. I will further discuss this complexity from the angle of political corruption (Part 2), media coverage (Part 3) and the community health impact (Part 4) in my following posts.

 

References:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj895x/rosignano-soan-idyllic-beach-made-the-cover-of-vogue-italia-but-not-the-huge-chemical-plant-behind-it