It's been a sad week for kids in Naples, Italy, after they were banned from a beach thanks to a few unexpected dildos.
About a dozen of the sex toys washed up on shore earlier this week, The Sun reports. Volunteers from the Licola Mare Clean Association, which keeps the shoreline free of trash, were shocked to see plastic penises laying in the sand.
"When we saw them we started to laugh because we could not do anything else," a volunteer who wished to remain anonymous told The Sun.
And, honestly, what else could you do? According to Umberto Mercurio, president of the Licola Mare Clean Association, trash often washes up on this particular beach because of the way currents flow, but they've never found anything quite so interesting.
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The big unanswered question here (other than why anyone would frequent a beach where trash often washes up on shore) is: who decided to throw 12 dildos into the ocean? Surely, there are better ways to get rid of unwanted sex toys.
In fact, last year Alternet detailed exactly how you can dispose of any sex toy that has reached the end of its life, other than just chucking it in the trash.
Apparently, recycling is difficult since many sex toys are made up of several different kinds of materials and contain parts (like motors and batteries) that could be toxic. But there are a couple of sex toy companies that will take back and recycle toys once they've been used, including UK-based brand Lovehoney and Canada-based company Come As You Are.
Unfortunately, if you're truly determined to get rid of your toys and not, say, turn them into art, then recycling or tossing them in the trash seem to be the best options. Just please, for the love of all those children who were banned from the beach, don't dump them in the ocean.
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