"Roberto Gualtieri said a working group had been set up to study the feasibility of the clean-up project. We are pleased to have already established that this is an entirely achievable goal: within five years, we will be able to swim in the Tiber, Gualtieri said. But the Italian media and experts reacted with scepticism, suggesting it could take rather longer to reduce current pollution to an acceptable level, particularly in a country where public works can have notoriously lengthy timescales."
"Yet, the Italian capital's river is far from pristine. In April, scientists from the Tara Microplastics mission published findings on European waterway pollution that showed the Tiber had an average of three microplastic particles per cubic metre. That may be well below the more than 20 particles per cubic metre recorded in India's Ganges, but it is still far from reassuring."
Rome plans to reopen the River Tiber to public swimming within five years and has established a working group to study feasibility and cleanup. The initiative draws on Paris's recent reopening of the Seine for bathing. Swimming in the Tiber was common until pollution prompted restrictions from the 1960s; swimming remains prohibited today and subject to fines, though a New Year's Day bridge dive tradition continues. Officials claim Tiber pollution rates are lower than those that faced Paris and that costs would be lower than Paris's €1.4bn project. Recent research found an average of three microplastic particles per cubic metre in the Tiber, and ISPRA reported the Tiber carries more floating waste, mostly plastic, into the sea than any other Italian river.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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