#Venice the sinking city full#

We don’t pretend to be DiCaprio, but through these small actions we hope to do something positive The same rules and fines, however, do not apply to tourists – despite the fact that during high season the bins around Piazza San Marco have to be emptied every half an hour. Every day an army of sanitation workers knocks on every door in the city, collecting waste to be ferried away on barges. What comes into Venice must be removed again via a complex collection and recycling system. Photograph: Marco Di Lauro/Getty ImagesĪ new generation of concerned citizens and entrepreneurs is taking up that challenge, combining grassroots activism with socially sensitive, sustainable initiatives to save their island home. In 2016 Venetians took to the Giudecca Canal in small fishing boats to block the passage of six colossal cruise ships. And, although plans have been announced this year to reroute the largest ships to a new dock in Marghera (still to be built), campaigners still argue for a dock outside the lagoon at the Lido, where heavy cargo ships historically unloaded. One of the most dramatic was Venice’s 2016 No Grandi Navi (“No Big Ships”) protest, when locals took to the Giudecca Canal in small fishing boats to block the passage of six colossal cruise ships. But similar issues of overcrowding in Palma de Mallorca, San Sebastián, Prague and Salzburg have brought locals out into the streets in increasingly impassioned protests.

The new mayor, Mato Frankovic, has since capped the number of cruise ships that can dock in the city at two per day, cut souvenir stalls by 80% and cut restaurant seating in public spaces by 30%. In 2016 in Dubrovnik, residents were outraged when the mayor asked them to stay home to avoid the dangerous levels of crowds disembarking from multiple cruise ships.

#Venice the sinking city full#

Gondolas full of tourists in a “traffic jam”.