On a moonlit night off Italy's coast, fishermen are hauling in the usual catch: cuttlefish, red mullet and plastic waste. But this time, they won't throw the rubbish back. The trash instead is being collected, analysed and, where possible, recycled in an initially month-long experiment to try to provide a blueprint for cleaning up the sea.

"A lot of the fishermen used to throw the rubbish back into the sea, because the law says they can't bring it to land," said Eleonora de Sabata, coordinator for Clean Sea Life, which runs the project. "They're not authorised to carry waste, in ports there's nowhere to put this kind of waste and it's not clear who should dispose of it."