Pulsano asks region to clean beaches

Beach trash is usually treated like a local nuisance. In Pulsano, it has turned into a regional political ask. On April 30, mayor Pietro D’Alfonso publicly appealed to Puglia president Antonio Decaro for an extraordinary intervention to clean Marina di Pulsano before the 2026 bathing season properly begins. The point of the letter was simple — the rules for summer are arriving, but the beach itself is still dirty. (pugliapress.org) ### What actually happened? D’Alfonso sent an open letter after the municipality received Puglia’s 2026 beach ordinance, the seasonal rulebook that governs beach use and seaside operations. His complaint was that paperwork is not the same thing as a usable coastline. He asked Decaro to come see the conditions in person and to organize a regional cleanup effort for the stretches of shore around Marina di Pulsano. (pugliapress.org) ### Why is the mayor escalating this now? Because the calendar matters. Pulsano is heading toward summer, when beach towns either look ready or look abandoned, and that difference hits tourism fast. Local reports frame the situation as an “emergenza rifiuti” on the Ionian coast, with the mayor arguing that municipal resources are exhausted and that waiting longer would damage both the environment and the town’s image just weeks before the season. (pugliapress.org) ### What kind of waste are we talking about? This is the familiar coastal mess Italy calls *rifiuti spiaggiati* — waste washed ashore or left on the beach, then concentrated by tides, wind, and heavy use. That can mean plastic, drift material, mixed litter, and other debris that is expensive to remove because it is scattered across public shoreline rat(pugliapress.org) as a distinct environmental problem, with dedicated discussions on impacts and shared solutions. (regione.puglia.it) ### Why can’t the town just clean it? That is the real fight. Small coastal municipalities are expected to keep beaches presentable, but the cost spikes right before summer and the waste does not always come from local behavior alone. Some of it arrives from the sea. Some of it accumulates over months. D’Alfonso’s letter basically says(regione.puglia.it)al rules that assume beaches will be ready. (pugliapress.org) ### Why does the regional ordinance matter here? Because it highlights the mismatch. The ordinance sets the legal frame for the 2026 bathing season — what beach operators and local authorities must do, how seaside areas are managed, and when the summer regime kicks in. But an ordinance does not fund extraordinary cleanup on its own. So the mayor is usi(pugliapress.org)need to help pay to make them usable first. (regione.puglia.it) ### Is this only a Pulsano problem? Not really. Puglia has already been discussing stranded coastal waste as a broader technical and institutional issue, which tells you Pulsano is tapping into an existing regional problem rather than inventing one. The town is just putting a deadline on it — summer. That makes the issue more visible, because dirty beaches in late Apri(regione.puglia.it). (regione.puglia.it) ### What happens next? The immediate question is whether Decaro and the region respond with money, logistics, or a coordinated operation. The mayor’s request was not symbolic — he asked for extraordinary help now, not a generic promise later. If that help arrives quickly, the story fades into routine beach prep. If it does not, Pulsano could become a test case for how much responsibility Puglia expects small seaside towns to carry on their own. (pugliapress.org) ### Bottom line This is a beach-cleaning story, but also a governance story. Pulsano is saying the coast cannot be regulated into readiness — somebody has to physically clean it, and somebody has to pay. (pugliapress.org)