Our weekly review of the most read articles of the week. We are going to talk about plastic in the Pacific Ocean, the problem of vauchers in Italy, the dead of Luis Salom, the last Benigni’s interview and we’ll discover how to be a good mum.
An ocean made of plastic, by Paola Iotti
8th March 2014: a Malaysia Arlines’ airplane crashed at sea. For months, people have looked for it in the deep Pacific Ocean, but nothing was found.
Probably, what remained of the plane, couldn’t be easily recognisable because it was mixed up with other plastic objects in the sea.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific Trash vortex, is a something similar to an island but entirely made of trash. All the garbage collected by the Oceans all around the world, is carried in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean by some high-pressure currents.
The Pacific Patch is not the only one trash-made island of the globe. There are two others in the south, one in the Atlantic Ocean and one in the Indian Ocean. Some traces of garbage patches could be seen also in the Italian Mediterrean Sea between Cagliari and La Spezia.
The patch in the Pacific Ocean consist of 100 million tons of garbage: every year, people throw almost 25 million tons of rubbish in the sea. Philippines, China, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam are the most responsible country for this situation.
Only the 5% of garbage is recycled whilst the 40% is collected in landfills.
What happens to plastic when it floats in water? As a synthetic substance, it is not biodegradable, but after several years, sunlight can whittle plastic into very little pieces that mix up with plankton.
If swallowed by fish, turquoises, birds and sea mammals, plastic could make them suffocate.
Some scientists from Exeter’s University and from Plymouth Marine Laboratory, studied zooplankton and microorganisms swallowed by fish and suggested to reduce plastic production.
Boyan Slat, a young Dutch student, decided to build a floating barrier to stop plastic to go in deeper waters and call this “The Ocean Clean up”. One of these barriers is going to be placed in front of the Japanese Island of Tsushima.
In Sussex, another group projected the Seavax, a boat that can collect up to 22millions tons of garbage.
Experts declared that by 2050, the amount of plastic in oceans will be higher than the number of fish.
Is this only alarmism? We don’t think so.
Labourers payed by vouchers, by Andrea Umbrello
Ours is a cruel world to live in. Especially when we talk about working.
A different system of payment applied to those jobs that are not included in collective agreements, has been recently introduced.
Every voucher received is 7,50 euros worth but is nominal value counts 10 euros.
This system of payment does not offer any right to labourers: no payed vacancies, no assistance for illness.
A common worker is losing his social role: nowadays he is nothing more than a number. And the number of common workers, is rapidly increasing.
The problem is not only a political or economic one. This is a cultural and psychological problem.
With no social identity, we’ll go to our therapist and we’ll pay him by a 10euros worth voucher.
Luis Salom, dead because of his passion, by Maria Giovanna Campagna
He died at 16.55 p.m.
His fall was not a normal one. It wasn’t a sprain, as sometimes happens.
Luis Salom, professional motorcycle racer since 2010, was seriously injured after falling from his motorbike during a race. This fall, on turn 12 of the Barcelona circuit, was lethal to him.
He was only 24 and he run passionately. You could see it through his smile, posted by the pilot the night before every race. He was excited to run on such a circuit, he tweeted his enthusiasm the morning before the race. However, his destiny was cruel to him, as it was for Marco Simoncelli, Daijiro Kato e Shoya Tomizawa.
The causes of the accident are not yet known. Valentino Rossi declared that the turn 12 is not particularly difficult, that’s why a malfunction of the engine is more probable. He was running at a very high speed and lost control of the motorbike.
Luis, Marco, Daijiro, Shoya are the names of those boys who lost their life because of their passion.
I loved Benigni’s inseam, by Franco Giordano
The author of this article, showed openly his perplexity towards the interview released by Roberto Benigni.
Franco loved the rebel Benigni, the modern Don Quixote, the showman made of fantasy and poetry that was fierce of his uncommon inseam. Provocative. Hilarious. Political in the right sense.
Arguing against the showman’s declaration to vote yes to the referendum (to change part of the Constitutional Law), Franco, was seriously upset. Because he didn’t recognised anymore the man he once appreciated.
I’m pregnant. I hope it’s a… good guy, by Deborah Biasco
When you’re about to have a baby you wonder about the sex of your child. Will he be a boy? Or a girl?
For sure you’ll have to educate your baby. You’ll make him learn how to use knife and fork, to be polite, to be an educated pupil.
This article is about education, about how to make your children learn how to be sensitive towards the others.
About growing up in a certain way, respectful of your freedom and of the other’s.
Silvia Noli
